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Cfte i©arft^ of 2&al?ac 

CENTENARY EDITION 
VOLUME XV. 


CESAR BIROTTEAU 
NUCINGEN AND CO. 
ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN 




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Cesar Btrotteaa. 



^cencjef from l^arij^ian Eife 


LA COMEDIE HUMAINE 

OF 

HONORE DE BALZAC 


TRANSLATED BY 

KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY 


RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
NUCINGEN AND CO,, BANNERS 
ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN 


JUlustrateD its 
P. G. JEANNIOT 


BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
1915 


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Copyright, 1886, 1895, 1896^ 
By Roberts Brothers. 


All rights reserved 





Prfn.‘prB 

S. J. PaEKHILL iL Co.. BOSTO.V. I'.S A. 


ILLUSTRATIONS, 


From Photogravure Plates by Goupil <f- Co., Paris. 

THE RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU. 


C^SAR Birotteau . 


Reading Racine . 



“The Baron was breakfasting with his wife” 286 


Designed by P. G. Jeanniot. 


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RISE AND FALL 


OF 

CESAR BIROTTEAU. 


PAET L 

C^SAR AT HIS APOGEE. 

I. 

During winter nights noise never ceases in the Ruf 
Saint-Honor^ except for a short interval. Kitchen- 
gardeners carrying their produce to market continue 
the stir of carriages returning from theatres and balls. 
Near the middle of this sustained pause in the grand 
symphony of Parisian uproar, which occurs about one 
o’clock in the morning, the wife of Monsieur Cesar 
Birotteau, a perfumer established near the Place Ven- 
dome, was startled from her sleep b}^ a frightful dream. 
She had seen her double. She had appeared to herself 
clothed in rags, turning with a shrivelled, withered hand 
the latch of her own shop-door, seeming to be at the 
threshold, yet at the same time seated in her armchair 
behind the counter. She was asking alms of herself, 
and heard herself speaking from the doorway and also 
from her seat at the desk. 

I 


\ 


2 


CSmr Birotteau, 


She tried to grasp her husband, but her hand fell on 
a cold place. Her terror became so intense that she 
could not move her neck, which stiffened as if petrified ; 
the membranes of her throat became glued together, 
her voice failed her. She remained sitting erect in the 
same posture in the middle of the alcove, both panels 
of which were wide open, her e3"es staring and fixed, 
her hair quivering, her ears filled with strange noises, 
her heart tightened yet palpitating, and her person 
bathed in perspiration though chilled to the bone. 

Fear is a half-diseased sentiment, which presses so 
violentl}' upon the human mechanism that the faculties 
are suddenl}'^ excited to the highest degree of their 
power or driven to utter disorganization. Ph3’siologists 
have long wondered at this phenomenon, which over- 
turns their S3"stems and upsets all theories ; it is in fact 
a thunderbolt working within the being, and, like all 
electric accidents, capricious and whimsical in its course. 
This explanation will become a mere commonplace in 
the da3^ when scientific men are brought to recognize the 
immense part which electricit3" plays in human thought. 

Madame Birotteau now passed through several of the 
shocks, in some sort electrical, which are produced by 
terrible explosions of the will forced out, or held under, 
b3' some m3’sterious mechanism. Thus during a period 
of time, ver3’ short if judged b3^ a watch, but immeas- 
urable when calculated b3^ the rapidit3" of her impres- 
sions, the poor woman had the supernatural power of 
emitting more ideas and bringing to the surface more 
recollections than, under any ordinary use of her facul- 
ties, she could put forth in the course of a whole day. 
The poignant tale of her monologue may be abridged 


Cesar Birotteau, 


8 


into a few absurd sentences, as contradictory and bare 
of meaning as the monologue itself. 

“ There is no reason why Birotteau should leave my 
bed ! He has eaten so much veal that he may be ill. 
But if he were ill he would have waked me. For nine- 
teen years that we have slept together in this bed, in 
this house, it has never happened that he left his place 
without telling me, — poor sheep ! He never slept 
away except to pass the night in the guard-room. Did 
become to bed to-night? Why, of course ; goodness! 
how stupid I am.” 

She cast her ej’ es upon the bed and saw her hus- 
band’s night-cap, which still retained the almost conical 
shape of his head. 

“ Can he be dead? Has he killed himself? Why?” 
she went on. “ For the last two j^ears, since they made 
him deputy-ma^^or, he is all-I-dorCt-hnow-how. To 
put him into public life ! On the word of an honest 
woman, isn’t it pitiable? His business is doing well, 
for he gave me a shawl. But perhaps it is n’t doing 
well ? Bah 1 I should know of it. Does one ever 
know what a man has got in his head ; or a woman 
either? — there is no harm in that. Did n’t we sell five 
thousand francs’ worth to-day? Besides, a deputy- 
mayor could n’t kill himself ; he knows the laws too 
well. Where is he then?” 

She could neither turn her neck, nor stretch out her 
hand to pull the bell, which would have put in motion 
a cook, three clerks, and a shop-boy. A prey to the 
nightmare, which still lasted though her mind was wide 
awake, she forgot her daughter peacefully asleep in an 
adjoining room, the door of which opened at the foot of 


4 


CJimr Birotteau, 


her bed. At last she cried, “Birotteau!” but got no 
answer. She thought she had called the name aloud, 
though in fact she had only uttered it mentally. 

“ Has he a mistress? He is too stupid,” she added. 
“Besides, he loves me too well for that. Didn’t he 
tell Madame Roguin that he had never been unfaithful 
to me, even in thought? He is virtue upon earth, that 
man. If any one ever deserved paradise he does. 
What does he accuse himself of to his confessor, I 
wonder? He must tell him a lot of fiddle-faddle. Roy- 
alist as he is, though he does n’t know why, he can’t 
froth up his religion. Poor dear cat ! he creeps to Mass 
at eight o’clock as slyly as if he were going to a bad 
house. He fears God for God’s sake ; hell is nothing 
to him. How could he have a mistress? He is so tied 
to my petticoat that he bores me. He loves me better 
than his own eyes ; he would put them out for my sake. 
For nineteen years he has never said to me one word 
louder than another. His daughter is never considered 
before me. But Cesarine is here — C4sarine 1 Cesa- 
rine ! — Birotteau has never had a thought which he did 
not tell me. He was right enough when he declared to 
me at the Petit-Matelot that I should never know him 
till I tried him. And not here! It is extraordinary ! ” 

She turned her head with difficulty and glanced fur- 
tively about the room, then filled with those picturesque 
effects which are the despair of language and seem to 
belong exclusively to the painters of genre. What 
words can picture the alarming zig-zags produced by 
falling shadows, the fantastic appearance of curtains 
bulged out by the wind, the fiicker of uncertain light 
thrown by a night-lamp upon the folds of red calico, 


Cimr Birotteau, 


5 


the rays shed from a curtain-holder whose lurid centre 
was like the eye of a burglar, the apparition of a kneel- 
ing dress, — in short, all the grotesque effects which 
terrify the imagination at a moment when it has no 
power except to foresee misfortunes and exaggerate 
them? Madame Birotteau suddenly saw a strong light 
in the room bej^ond her chamber, and thought of fire ; 
but perceiving a red foulard which looked like a pool 
of blood, her mind turned exclusively to burglars, 
especially when she thought she saw traces of a 
struggle in the way the furniture stood about the 
room. Recollecting the sum of monej^ which was in 
the desk, a generous fear put an end to the chill fer- 
ment of her nightmare. She sprang terrified, and in 
her night-gown, into the very centre of the room to 
help her husband, whom she supposed to be in the 
grasp of assassins. 

“ Birotteau ! Birotteau ! ” she cried at last in a voice 
full of anguish. 

She then saw the perfumer in the middle of the next 
room, a yard-stick in his hand measuring the air, and 
so ill wrapped up in his green cotton dressing-gown 
with chocolate-colored spots that the cold had reddened 
his legs without his feeling it, preoccupied as he was. 
When Cesar turned about to say to his wife, “Well, 
what do you want, Constance?” his air and manner, 
like those of a man absorbed in calculations, were so 
prodigiously silly that Madame Birotteau began to 
laugh. 

“ Goodness I Cesar, if you are not an oddity like 
that ! ” she said. “ Why did you leave me alone with- 
out telling me? I have nearly died of terror; I did 


6 


CSsar Birotteau, 


not know what to imagine. What are you doing there, 
flying open to all the winds? You’ll get as hoarse as 
a wolf. Do you hear me, Birotteau?” 

“Yes, wife, here I am,” answered the perfumer, 
coming into the bedroom. 

“ Come and warm yourself, and tell me what maggot 
3^ou Ve got in your head,” replied Madame Birotteau 
opening the ashes of the fire, which she hastened to 
relight. “I am frozen. What a goose I was to get 
up in my night-gown ! But I really thought they were 
assassinating you.” 

The shopkeeper put his candlestick on the chimney- 
piece, wrapped his dressing-gown closer about him, and 
went mechanically to find a flannel petticoat for his 
wife. 

“ Here, Mimi, cover j’ourself up,” he said. “ Twenty- 
two by eighteen,” he resumed, going on with his mono- 
logue ; “we can get a superb salon.” 

“Ah, 9a! Birotteau, are you on the high-road to 
insanity? Are you dreaming? ” 

“ No, wife, I am calculating.” 

“You had better wait till daylight for your non^ 
sense,” she cried, fastening the petticoat beneath her 
short night-gown and going to the door of the room 
where her daughter was in bed. 

“ Cesarine is asleep,” she said, “ she won’t hear us. 
Come, Birotteau, speak up. What is it?” 

“ We can give a ball.” 

“Give a ball! we? On the word of an honest 
woman, 3"ou are dreaming, my dear friend.” 

“T am not dreaming, my beautiful white doe. Listen. 
People should always do what their position in life 


CSsar Birotteau. 


7 


I 

demands. Government has brought me forward into 
prominence. I belong to the government; it is my 
duty to study its mind, and further its intentions by 
developing them. The Due de Richelieu has just put 
an end to tbe occupation of France^ by the foreign 
armies. According to Monsieur de la Billardiere, the 
functionaries who represent the city of Paris should 
make it their duty, each in his own sphere of influence, 
to celebrate the liberation of our territory. Let us 
show a true patriotism which shall put these liberals, 
these damned intriguers, to the blush ; hein ? Do 3’ou 
think I don’t love my countr}^? I wish to show the 
liberals, m3" enemies, that to love the king is to love 
France.” 

“ Do you think you have got an3" enemies, my poor 
Birotteau ? ” 

“ Wh3', yes, wife, we have enemies. Half our friends 
in the quarter are our enemies. They all say, ‘ Birot- 
teau has had luck ; Birotteau is a man who came from 
nothing : yet here he is deput3"-ma3"or ; everything suc- 
ceeds with him.’ Well, the3" are going to be flnely sur- 
prised. You are the first to be told that I am made a 
chevalier of the Legion of honor. The king signed 
the order yesterday.” 

“ Oh! then,” said Madame Birotteau, much moved, 
“ of course we must give the ball, my good friend. But 
what have 3"OU done to merit the cross?” 

“ Yesterday, when Monsieur de la Billardiere told me 
the news,” said Birotteau, modestly, “ I asked myself, 
as you do, what claims I had to it ; but I ended by see- 
ing what they were, and in approving the action of the 
government. In the first place, I am a royalist ; I was 


8 


CSsar Birotteau. 


wounded at Saint-Roch in Vend^miaire : is n’t it some- 
thing to have borne arms in those days for the good 
cause? Then, according to the merchants, I exercised 
my judicial functions in a wa}^ to give general satisfac- 
tion. I am now deputy-mayor. The king grants four 
crosses to the municipality of Paris ; the prefect, 
selecting among the deputies suitable persons to be 
thus decorated, has placed my name first on the list. 
The king moreover knows me : thanks to old Ragon. 
I furnish him with the only powder he is willing to use ; 
we alone possess the receipt of the late queen, — poor, 
dear, august victim ! The mayor vehemently supported 
me. So there it is. If the king gives me the cross 
without my^ asking for it, it seems to me that I cannot 
refuse it without failing in my^ duty to him. Did I seek 
to be deputy-mayor? So, wife, since we are sailing be- 
fore the wind, as y^our uncle Pillerault says when he 
is jovial, I have decided to put the household on a foot- 
ing in conformity with our high position. If I can 
become anything, I ’ll risk being whatever the good God 
wills that I shall be, — sub-prefect, if such be my destiny\ 
My wife, you are much mistaken if you think a citizen 
has paid his debt to his country by merely selling per- 
fumery for twenty years to those who came to buy it. 
If the State demands the help of our intelligence, we 
are as much bound to give it as we are to pay the tax 
on personal property, on windows and doors, et coetera. 
Do you want to stay forever behind your counter? You 
have been there, thank God, a long time. This ball 
shall be our fete, — yours and mine. Good-by to econ- 
omy, — for your sake, be it understood. I burn our 
sign, ‘ The Queen of Roses ; ’ I eflface the name, ‘ Cesar 


CSsar Birotteau. 


9 


Birotteau, Perfumer, Successor to Ragon,* and put 
simply ‘ Perfumery ’ in big letters of gold. On the 
entresol I place the office, the counting-room, and a 
pretty little sanctum for you. I make the shop out of 
the back-shop, the present dining-room, and kitchen. 
I hire the first floor of the next house, and open a door 
into it through the wall. I turn the staircase so as to 
pass from house to house on one floor ; and we shall 
thus get a grand appartement, furnished like a nest. 
Yes, I shall refurnish your bedroom, and contrive a 
boudoir for you and a pretty chamber for Cesarine. The 
shop-girl whom you will hire, our head clerk, and your 
lady’s-maid (yes, Madame, you are to have one !) will 
sleep on the second floor. On the third will be the 
kitchen and rooms of the cook and the man -of-all- work. 
The fourth shall be a general store-house for bottles, 
crystals, and porcelains. The workshop for our people, 
in the attic ! Passers-by shall no longer see them gum- 
ming on the labels, making the bags, sorting the flasks, 
and corking the phials. Very well for the Rue Saint- 
Denis, but for the Rue Saint-Honore — ly ! bad style ! 
Our shop must be as comfortable as a drawing-room. 
Tell me, are we the only perfumers who have reached 
public honors? Are there not vinegar merchants and 
mustard men who command in the National Guard and 
are very well received at the Palace ? Let us imitate 
them ; let us extend our business, and at the same time 
press forward into higher society.” 

“ Goodness ! Birotteau, do you know what I am 
thinking of as I listen to you ? You are like the man 
who looks for knots in a bulrush. Recollect what I said 
when it was a question of making you deputy -mayor : 


10 


CSmr Birotteau. 


‘ your peace of mind before everything ! * You are as fit, 
I told you, ‘ to be put forward in public life as my arm is 
to turn a windmill. Honors will be your ruin ! ’ You 
would not listen to me, and now the ruin has come. To 
play a part in politics you must have money : have we 
any? What ! would you burn your sign, which cost six 
hundred francs, and renounce ‘ The Queen of Roses,’ 
your true glory ? Leave ambition to others. He who 
puts his hand in the fire gets burned, — is n’t that true ? 
Politics burn in these days. We have one hundred 
good thousand francs invested outside of our business, 
our productions, our merchandise. If j’ou want to in- 
crease your fortune, do as they did in 1793. The Funds 
are at sixty-two : buy into the Funds. You will get ten 
thousand francs’ income, and the investment won’t ham- 
per our property. Take advantage of the occasion to 
marry our daughter; sell the business, and let us go 
and live in your native place. Why ! for fifteen years 
3 ^ou have talked of nothing but buying Les Tresoridres, 
that pretty little propert}" near Chinon, where there are 
woods and fields, and ponds and vinej^ards, and two 
dairies, which bring in a thousand crowns a year, with 
a house which we both like, — all of which we can have 
for sixty thousand francs ; and, lo ! Monsieur now wants 
to become something under government! Recollect 
what we are, — perfumers. If sixteen years before 
3 ^ou invented the Double Paste of Sultans and the 
Carminative Balm some one had said, ‘You are going 
to make enough money to buy Les Tresorieres,’ would n’t 
you have been half sick with joy? Well, 3 ’ou can ac- 
quire that property which you wanted so much that you 
hardly opened your mouth about anything else, and 


C 4 mr Birotteau. 


11 


now you talk of spending on nonsense money earned by 
the sweat of our brow : I can say ours, for I Ve sat be- 
hind the desk through all that time, like a poor dog in 
his kennel. Is n’t it much better to come and visit our 
daughter after she is married to a notary of Paris, and 
live eight months of the year at Chinon, than to begin 
here to make five sous six blanks, and of six blanks 
nothing? Wait for a rise in the Funds, and you can 
give eight thousand francs a 3^ear to 3’our daughter and 
we can keep two thousand for ourselves, and the pro- 
ceeds of the business will allow us to buy Les Treso- 
rieres. There in j^our native place, my good little 
cat, with our furniture, which is worth a great deal, we 
shall live like princes ; whereas here we want at least a 
million to make any figure at all.” 

“I expected you to say all this, wife,” said Cesar 
Birotteau. “ I am not quite such a fool (though you 
think me a great fool, you do) as not to have thought 
of all that. Now, listen to me. Alexandre Crottat will 
fit us like a glove for a son-in-law, and he will succeed 
Roguin ; but do j’ou suppose he will be satisfied with a 
hundred thousand francs dot ? — supposing that we gave 
our whole property outside of the business to establish 
our daughter, and I am willing; I would gladly live 
on dry bread the rest of my days to see her happy as 
a queen, the wife of a notar}^ of Paris, as 3^ou say. 
Well, then, a hundred thousand francs, or even eight 
thousand francs a year, is nothing at all towards buy- 
ing Roguin’s practice. Little Xandrot, as we call him, 
thinks, like all the rest of the world, that we are richer 
than we are. If his father, that big farmer who is as 
close as a snail, won’t sell a hundred thousand franca 


12 


C6sar Birottean, 


worth of land Xandrot can’t be a notar}^, for Roguin’s 
practice is worth four or five hundred thousand. If 
Crottat does not pay half down, how could he negotiate 
the aflair? Cesarine must have two hundred thousand 
francs dot ; and I mean that you and I shall retire solid 
bourgeois of Paris, with fifteen thousand francs a year. 
Hein ! If I could make you see that as plain as day, 
would n’t it shut your mouth ? ” 

“Oh, if you ’ve got the mines of Peru — ” 

“ Yes, I have, my lamb. Yes,” he said, taking his 
wife by the waist and striking her with little taps, under 
an emotion of joy which lighted up his features, “I 
did not wish to tell you of this matter till it was all 
cooked ; but to-morrow it will be done, — that is, per- 
haps it will. Here it is then : Roguin has proposed a 
speculation to me, so safe that he has gone into it with 
Ragon, with your uncle Pillerault, and two other of his 
clients. We are to buy property near the Madeleine, 
which, according to Roguin’s calculations, we shall get 
for a quarter of the value which it will bring three years 
from now, at which time, the present leases having ex- 
pired, we shall manage it for ourselves. We have all 
six taken certain shares. I furnish three hundred thou- 
sand francs, — that is, three-eighths of the whole. If 
an}' one of us wants money, Roguin will get it for him 
by hypothecating his share. To hold the gridiron and 
know how the fish are fried, I have chosen to be, nomi- 
nally proprietor of one half, which is, however, to be 
the common property of Pillerault and the worthy 
Ragon and myself. Roguin will be, under the name of 
Monsieur Charles Claparon, co-proprietor with me, and 
will give a reversionary deed to his associates, as I shall 


CSsar Birotteau, 


13 


to mine. The deeds of purchase are made by promises 
of sale under private seal, until we are masters of the 
whole property. Roguin will investigate as to which 
of the contracts should be paid in money, for he is not 
sure that we can dispense with registering and 3"et turn 
over the titles to those to whom we sell in small parcels. 
But it takes too long to explain all this to you. The 
ground once paid for, we have only to cross our arms 
and in three years we shall be rich by a million. Ce- 
sarine will then be twenty, our business will be sold, 
and we shall step, by the grace of God, modestly to 
eminence.” 

“ Where will you get your three hundred thousand 
francs?” said Madame Birotteau. 

“You don’t understand business, my beloved little 
cat. I shall take the hundred thousand francs which 
are now with Roguin ; I shall borrow forty thousand 
on the buildings and gardens where we now have our 
manufactory in the Faubourg du Temple ; we have 
twent}" thousand francs here in hand, — in all, one hun- 
dred and sixty thousand. There remain one hundred 
and foi-ty thousand more, for which I shall sign notes 
to the order of Monsieur Charles Claparon, banker. 
He will pay the value, less the discount. So there are 
the three hundred thousand francs provided for. He 
who owns rents owes nothing. When the notes fall 
due we can pay them off with our profits. If we 
cannot pay them in cash, Roguin will give the money at 
five per cent, hypothecated on my share of the prop- 
erty. But such loans will be unnecessary. I have dis- 
covered an essence which will make the hair grow, — 
an Oil Comagene, from Syria! Livingston has just 


14 


C^^ar Birotteau. 


set up for me an hydraulic press to manufacture the 
oil from nuts, which yield it readily under strong pres- 
sure. In a year, according to mj’ calculations, I shall 
have made a hundred thousand francs at least. I 
meditate an advertisement which shall begin, ‘ Down 
with wigs ! * — the effect will be prodigious. You have 
never found out my wakefulness, Madame ! For three 
months the success of Macassar Oil has kept me from 
sleeping. I am resolved to take the shine out of 
Macassar ! ” 

“ So these are the fine projects you’ve been rolling 
in your noddle for two months without choosing to tell 
me? I have just seen myself begging at my own 
door, — a warning fi’om heaven ! Before long we shall 
have nothing left but our eyes to weep with. Never 
while I live shall you do it; do you hear me, Cesar? 
Underneath all this there is some plot which j ou don’t 
perceive ; you are too upright and loyal to suspect the 
trickery of others. Wh^^ should they come and offer 
3’ou millions? You are giving up 3'^our property, 3'ou 
are going be3'ond your means ; and if 3’our oil does n’t 
succeed, if 3"ou don’t make the monej", if the value of 
the land can’t be realized, how will 3’ou pa3" 3'our 
notes ? With the shells of 3’our nuts ? To rise in so- 
ciet3’ 3’ou are going to hide 3'our name, take down 
3’our sign, ‘The Queen of Roses,’ and 3’et 3’ou mean 
to salaam and bow and scrape in advertisements and 
prospectuses, which will placard Cesar Birotteau at 
every corner, and on all the boards, wherever they are 
building.” 

“ Oh ! you are not up to it all. I shall have a 
branch establishment, under the name of Popinot, in 


CSsar Birotteau, 


16 


some house near the Rue des Lombards, where 1 shall 
put little Anselme. I shall pa}’ my debt of gratitude 
to Monsieur and Madame Ragon by setting up their 
nephew, who can make his fortune. The poor Rago- 
nines look to me half- starved of late.” 

“ Bah ! all those people want your money.” 

“But what people, my treasure? Is it your uncle 
Pillerault, who loves us like the apple of his eye, and 
dines with us every Sunday? Is it good old Ragon, 
our predecessor, who has forty upright years in business 
to boast of, and with whom we play our game of bos- 
ton? Is it Roguin, a notary, a man fifty-seven years 
old, twenty-five of which he has been in office? A 
notary of Paris ! he would be the flower of the lot, if 
honest folk were not all worth the same price. If 
necessary, my associates will help me. Where is the 
plot, my white doe ? Look here, I must tell you your 
defect. On the word of an honest man it lies on my 
heart. You are as suspicious as a cat. As soon as 
we had two sous worth in the shop you thought the 
customers were all thieves. I had to go down on my 
knees to you to let me make you rich. For a Parisian 
girl you have no ambition ! If it had n’t been for your 
perpetual fears, no man could have been happier than I. 
If I had listened to you I should never have invented 
the Paste of Sultans nor the Carminative Balm. Our 
shop has given us a living, but those two discoveries 
have made the hundred and sixty thousand francs which 
we possess, net and clear ! Without my genius, for I 
certainly have talent as a perfumer, we should now be 
petty retail shopkeepers, pulling the devil’s tail to make 
both ends meet. I should n’t be a distinguished mei> 


16 


Cimr Birotteau, 


chant, competing in the election of judges for the depart- 
ment of commerce ; I should be neither a judge nor a 
deputy-maj'or. Do 3"Ou know what I should be? A 
shopkeeper like Pere Ragon, — be it said without offence, 
for I respect shopkeeping ; the best of our kidney are in 
it. After selling perfumery like him for forty ^^ears, we 
should be worth three thousand francs a year ; and at 
the price things are now, for they have doubled in 
value, we should, like them, have barely enough to 
live on. (Day after day that poor old household wrings 
my heart more and more. I must know more about it, 
and I’ll get at the truth from Popinot to-morrow !) If I 
had followed your advice — you who have such uneasy 
happiness and are alwaj’s asking whether you will have 
to-morrow what you have got to-day — I should have no 
credit, I should have no cross of the Legion of honor. 
I should not be on the highroad to becoming a political 
personage. Yes, you maj" shake 3’our head, but if our 
affair succeeds I ma}" become deput}" of Paris. Ah ! I 
am not named Cesar for nothing ; I succeed. It is 
unimaginable ! outside everj^ one credits me with capac- 
ity, but here the onl}" person whom I want so much to 
please that I sweat blood and water to make her happj’, 
is precisely’ the one who takes me for a fool.” 

These phrases, dmded bj" eloquent pauses and deliv- 
ered like shot, after the manner of those who recrimi- 
nate, expressed so deep and constant an attachment 
that Madame Birotteau was inwardl}" touched, though, 
like all women, she made use of the love she inspired 
to gain her end. 

“Well! Birotteau,” she said, “if you love me, let 
me be happy my own way. Neither you nor I have 


CSsar Birotteau. 


17 


education ; we don’t know how to talk, nor to play 
‘ your obedient servant ’ like men of the world ; how 
then do j^ou expect that we could succeed in government 
places ? I shall be happy at Les Tresorieres, indeed I 
shall. I have always loved birds and animals, and I 
can pass my life very well taking care of the hens and 
the farm. Let us sell the business, marry C^sarine, 
and give up your visions. We can come and pass the 
winters in Paris with our son-in-law ; we shall be 
happy ; nothing in politics or commerce can then 
change our way of life. Why do 3'ou want to crush 
others? Isn’t our present fortune enough for us? 
When you are a millionnaire can you eat two dinners ; 
will you want two wives ? Look at my uncle Pillerault ! 
He is wisely content with his little property, and spends 
his life in good deeds. Does he want fine furniture? 
Not he ! I know very well you have been ordering 
furniture for me : 1 saw Braschon here, and it was not 
to buy perfumery.” 

“ Well, my beaut}^, yes ! Your furniture is ordered ; 
our improvements begin to-morrow, and are superin- 
tended by an architect recommended to me by Monsieur 
de la Billardiere.” 

“ My God ! ” she cried, “ have pity upon us ! ” 

“But you are not reasonable, my love. Do you 
think that at thirty-seven years of age, fresh and pretty 
as you are, you can go and bur^^ yourself at Chinon? 
I, thank God, am only thirty-nine. Chance opens to 
me a fine career ; I enter upon it. If I conduct myself 
prudently I can make an honorable house among the 
bourgeoisie of Paris, as was done in former times. I 
can found the house of Birotteau, like the house of 


18 


CSsar Birotteau, 


Keller, or Jules Desmarets, or Roguin, Cochin, Guil- 
laume, Lebas, Nucingen, Saillard, Popinot, Matifat, 
who make their mark, or have made it, in their respec- 
tive quarters. Come now ! If this affair were not as 
sure as bars of gold — ” 

“ Sure ! ’’ 

“Yes, sure. For two months I have figured at it. 
Without seeming to do so, I have been getting informa- 
tion on building from the department of public works, 
from architects and contractors. Monsieur Grindot, 
the young architect who is to alter our house, is in de- 
spair that he has no money to put into the speculation.” 

“He hopes for the work; he says that to screw 
something out of you.” 

“ Can he take in such men as Pillerault, as Charles 
Claparon, as Roguin? The profit is as sure as that of 
the Paste of Sultans.” 

“But, my dear friend, why should Roguin speculate? 
He gets his commissions, and his fortune is made. I 
see him pass sometimes more full of care than a minis- 
ter of state, with an underhand look which I don’t like ; 
he hides some secret anxiety. His face has grown in 
five years to look like that of an old rake. Who can 
be sure that he won’t kick over the traces when he gets 
all your property into his own hands. Such things 
happen. Do we know him well? He has only been a 
friend for fifteen years, and I would n’t put my hand 
into the fire for him. Why ! he is not decent : he does 
not live with his wife. He must have mistresses who 
ruin him ; I don’t see any other cause for his anxiety. 
When I am dressing I look through the blinds, and I 
often see him coming home in the mornings : where 


Ci%aT Birotteau, 


19 


from ? Nobodj^ knows. He seems to me like a man 
who has an establishment in town, who spends on his 
pleasures, and Madame on hers. Is that the life of a 
notary ? If they make lift}" thousand francs a 3'ear and 
spend sixty thousand, in twenty years they will get to 
the end of their property and be as naked as the little 
Saint John ; and then, as the}' can’t do without luxur}", 
they will prey upon their friends without compunction. 
Charity begins at home. He is intimate with that little 
scamp du Tillet, our former clerk ; and I see nothing 
good in that friendship. If he does n’t know how to 
judge du Tillet he must be blind ; and if he does know 
him, why does he pet him? You ’ll tell me, because his 
wife is fond of du Tillet. Well, I don’t look for any 
good in a man who has no honor with respect to his 
wife. Besides, the present owners of that land must be 
fools to sell for a hundred sous what is worth a hundred 
francs. If 3’ou met a child who did not know the value 
of a louis, wouldn’t you feel bound to tell him of it? 
Your affair looks to me like a theft, be it said without 
offence.” 

“ Good God ! how queer women are sometimes, and 
how they mix up ideas ! If Roguin were not in this 
business, 3’ou would say to me : ‘ Look here, Cesar, 
3'ou are going into a thing without Roguin ; therefore it 
is worth nothing.’ But to-day he is in it, as security, 
and you tell me — ” 

“ No, that is a Monsieur Claparon.” 

‘ ‘ But a notar3’' cannot put his own name into a 
speculation.” 

“Then wh3’’ is he doing a thing forbidden by law? 
How do 3’ou answer that, you who are guided by law?” 


20 


CSsar Birotteau. 


“ Let me go on. Roguin is in it, and you tell me the 
business is worthless. Is that reasonable? You say, 
‘ He is acting against the law.* But he would put him- 
self openly in the business if it were necessary. Can’t 
they say the same of me? Would Ragon and Pillerault 
come and say to me : ‘ Why do you have to do with 
this affair, — you who have made your- money as a 
merchant ? ’ ” 

“ Merchants are not in the same position as nota- 
ries,” said Madame Birotteau. 

“ Well, my conscience is clear,” said Cesar, continu- 
ing ; “ the people who sell, sell because they must ; we 
do not steal from them an}^ more than you steal from 
others when j^ou bu}^ their stocks at seventy-five. We 
buy the ground to-day at to-day’s price. In two years 
it will be another thing : just so with stocks. Know 
then, Constance-Barbe- Josephine Pillerault, that you will 
never catch C4sar Birotteau doing anything against the 
most rigid honor, nor against the laws, nor against his 
conscience, nor against delicacy. A man established 
and known for eighteen 3 ^ears, to be suspected in his 
own household of dishonesty ! ” 

“ Come, be calm, C^sar! A woman who has lived 
with you all that time knows down to the bottom of 
your soul. You are the master, after all. You earned 
your fortune, didn’t you? It is yours, and you can 
spend it. If we are reduced to the last straits of pov- 
. erty , neither your daughter nor I will make you a single 
reproach. But, listen : when you invented your Paste 
of Sultans and Carminative Balm, what did you risk ? 
Five or six thousand francs. To-day you put all your 
fortune on a game of cards. And you are not the only 


Cimr Birotteau, 


21 


one to play ; you have associates who may he much 
cleverer than 3^011. Give your ball, remodel the house, 
spend ten thousand francs if you like, — it is useless but 
not ruinous. As to 3’our speculations near the Made- 
leine, I formally object. You are a perfumer: be a 
perfumer, and not a speculator in land. We women 
have instincts which do not deceive us. I have warned 
you ; now follow 3"our own lead. You have been judge 
in the department of commerce, 3"ou know the laws. 
So far, 3'ou have guided the ship well, C^sar ; I shall 
follow 3’ou ! But I shall tremble till I see our fortune 
solidly secure and Cesarine well married. God grant 
that my dream be not a prophecy ! 

This submission thwarted Birotteau, who now em- 
ploj'ed an innocent ruse to which he had had recourse 
on similar occasions. 

“Listen, Constance. I have not given my word; 
though it is the same as if I had.” 

“ Oh, Cesar, all is said ; let us say no more. Honor 
before fortune. Come, go to bed, dear friend, there 
is no more wood. Besides, we shall talk better in bed, 
if it amuses 3’ou. Oh ! that horrid dream ! M3’ God ! 
to see one’s self! It was fearful I Cesarine and I will 
have to make a pretty number of neuvaines for the 
success of 3'our speculations.” 

“ Doubtless the help of God can do no harm,” said 
Birotteau, gravely. “But the oil of nuts is also pow- 
erful, wife. I made this discovery just as I made that 
of the Double Paste of Sultans, — by chance. The 
first time by opening a book ; this time by looking at 
an engraving of Hero and Leander: 3^ou know, the 
woman who pours oil on the head of her lover ; pretty, 


22 


CSsar Birotteau, 


is n’t it? The safest speculations are those which de- 
pend on vanity, on self-love, on the desire of appearing 
well. Those sentiments never die.” 

“ Alas ! I know it well.” 

“At a certain age men will turn their souls inside 
out to get hair, if they have n’t an}’. For some time 
past hair-dressers have told me that they sell not onlj’ 
Macassar, but all the drugs which are said to dye hair 
or make it grow. Since the peace, men are more with 
women, and women don’t like bald-heads ; hey ! hey ! 
Mimi ? The demand for that article grows out of the 
political situation. A composition which will keep the 
hair in good health will sell like bread ; all the more if 
it has the sanction, as it will have, of the Academy of 
Sciences. good Monsieur Vauquelin will perhaps 
help me once more. I shall go to him to-morrow and 
submit my idea ; offering him at the same time that 
engraving which I have at last found in Germany, after 
two years’ search. He is now engaged in analyzing 
hair: Chiffreville, his associate in the manufacture of 
chemical products, told me so. If my discovery should 
jump with his, my essence will be bought by both 
sexes. The idea is a fortune ; I repeat it. Mon Dieu ! 
I can’t sleep. He}" ! luckily little Popinot has the 
finest head of hair in the world. A shop-girl with hair 
long enough to touch the ground, and who could say — 
if the thing w’ere possible without offence to God or 
my neighbor — that the Oil Comag^ne (for it shall be an 
oil, decidedly) has had something to do with it, — all 
the gray-heads in Paris will fling themselves upon the 
invention like poverty upon the world. Hey ! hey ! 
Mignonne ! how about the ball? I am not wicked, but 


CSsar Birotteau, 


23 


I should like to meet that little scamp du Tillet, who 
swells out with his fortune and avoids me at the Bourse. 
He knows that I know a thing about him which was 
not fine. Perhaps I have been too kind to him. Is n’t 
it odd, wife, that we are always punished for our good 
deeds? — here below, I mean. I behaved like a father 
to him ; you don’t know all I did for him.” 

“ You give me goose-flesh merely speaking of it. If 
you knew what he wished to make of you, you would 
never have kept the secret of his stealing that three 
thousand francs, — for I guessed just how the thing 
was done. If you had sent him to the correctional 
police, perhaps you would have done a service to a good 
many people.” 

“ What did he wish to make of me? ” 

“ Nothing. If you were inclined to listen to me 
to-night, I would give you a piece of good advice, 
Birotteau ; and that is, to let your du Tillet alone.” 

“Won’t it seem strange if I exclude him from my 
liouse, — a clerk for whom I indorsed to the amount of 
twenty thousand francs when he first went into busi- 
ness? Come, let us do good for good’s sake. Besides, 
perhaps du Tillet has mended his ways.” 

“Everything is to be turned topsy-turvy, then?” 

“ What do 3’ou mean with your tops^^-turvy ? Every- 
thing will be ruled like a sheet of music-paper. Have 
you forgotten what I have just told you about turning 
the staircase and hiring the first floor of the next 
house? — which is all settled with the umbrella-maker, 
Cayron. He and I are going to-morrow to see his 
proprietor, Monsieur Molineux. To-morrow I have as 
much to do as a minister of state. 


24 


Ci%ar Birotteau, 


“You turn my brain with j^our projects,” said Con- 
stance. “I am all mixed up. Besides, Birotteau, 
I^m asleep.” 

“ Good-day,” replied the husband. “Just listen ; I 
say good-day because it is morning, Mimi. Ah ! there 
she is off, the dear child. Yes ! you shall be rich, 
richissime^ or I’ll renounce my name of Cesar!” 

A few moments later Constance and Cesar were 
peacefully snoring. 


CSsar Birotteau, 


25 


n. 

A GLANCE rapidly thrown over tne past life of this 
household will strengthen the ideas which ought to 
have been suggested by the friendly altercation of the 
two personages in this scene. While picturing the 
manners and customs of retail shopkeepers, this sketch 
will also show by what singular chances. Cdsar Birotteau 
became deputy-mayor and perfumer, retired officer of 
the National Guard, and chevalier of the Legion of 
honor. In bringing to light the depths of his charac- 
ter and the causes of his rise, we shall show that for- 
tuitous commercial events which strong brains dominate, 
may become irreparable catastrophes for weak ones. 
Events are never absolute ; their results depend on 
individuals. Misfortune is a stepping-stone for genius, 
the baptismal font of Christians, a treasure for the 
skilful man, an abj’ss for the feeble. 

A vine-dresser in the neighborhood of Chinon, named 
Jean Birotteau, married the waiting-maid of a lady 
whose vines he tilled. He had three sons ; his wife 
died in giving birth to the last, and the poor man did 
not long survive her. The mistress had been fond of 
the maid, and brought up with her own sons the eldest 
child, Frangois, and placed him in a seminary. Or- 
dained priest, Frangois Birotteau hid himself during 
the Revolution, and led the wandering life of priests 
not sworn by the Republic, hunted like wild beasts and 


26 


Cimr Birotteau, 


guillotined at the first chance. At the time when this 
history begins he was vicar of the cathedral of Tours, 
and had only once left that city to visit his brother 
Cesar. The bustle of Paris so bewildered the good 
priest that he was afraid to leave his room. He called 
the cabriolets “ half-coaches,” and wondered at all he 
saw. After a week’s stay he went back to Tours re- 
solving never to revisit the capital. 

The second son of the vine-dresser, Jean Birotteau, 
was drafted into the militia, and won the rank of cap- 
tain early in the wars of the Revolution. At the 
battle of Trebia, Macdonald called for volunteers to 
carry a battery. Captain Jean Birotteau advanced 
with his company, and was killed. The destiny of 
the Birotteaus demanded, no doubt, that they should 
be oppressed by men, or by circumstances, whereso- 
ever they planted themselves. 

The last child is the hero of this stoiy. When 
Cesar at fourteen years of age could read, write, and 
cipher, he left his native place and came to Paris on 
foot to seek his fortune, with one louis in his pocket. 
The recommendation of an apothecary at Tours got 
him a place as shop-boy with Monsieur and Madame 
Ragon, perfumers. Cesar owned at this period a pair 
of hob-nailed shoes, a pair of breeches, blue stockings, 
a flowered waistcoat, a peasant’s jacket, three coarse 
shirts of good linen, and his travelling cudgel. If his 
hair was cut like that of a choir-boy, he at least had 
the sturdy loins of a Tourangian ; if he yielded some- 
times to the native idleness of his birthplace, it was 
counterbalanced by his desire to make his fortune ; if 
he lacked cleverness and education, he possessed an 


€imr Birotteau, 


27 


instinctive rectitude and delicate feelings, which he 
inherited from his mother, — a being who had, in Tour- 
angian phrase, a “ heart of gold.” Cesar received from 
the Ragons bis food, six francs a month as wages, and 
a pallet to sleep upon in the garret near the cook. 
The clerks who taught him to pack the goods, to do 
the errands, and sweep up the shop and the pave- 
ment, made fun of him as they did so, according to 
the manners and customs of shop-keeping, in which 
chaff is a principal element of instruction. Monsieur 
and Madame Ragon spoke to him like a dog. No one 
paid attention to his weariness, though many a night 
his feet, blistered by the pavements; of Paris, and his 
bruised shoulders, made him suffer horribly. This 
harsh application of the maxim “each for himself,” — 
the gospel of large cities, — made Cesar think the life 
of Paris very hard. At night he cried as he thought of 
Touraine, where the peasant works at his ease, where 
the mason lays a stone between breakfast and dinner, 
and idleness is wisely mingled with labor; but he 
alwaj’s fell asleep without having time to think of 
running away, for he had his errands to do in the 
morning, and obeyed his duty with the instinct of a 
watch-dog. If occasionally he complained, the head 
clerk would smile with a jovial air, and say, — 

“ Ah, m}^ boy ! all is not rose at ‘ The Queen of Roses.’ 
Larks don’t fall down roasted ; you must run after them 
and catch them, and then you must find some way to 
cook them.” 

The cook, a big creature from Picardy, took the best 
bits for herself, and onlj^ spoke to C^sar when she 
wanted to complain of Monsieur and Madame Ragon* 


28 


CJi%ar Birotteau. 


who left her nothing to steal. Towards the end of the 
first month this girl, who was forced to keep house of a 
Sunday, opened a conversation with Cesar. Ursula 
with the grease washed off seemed charming to the 
poor shop-boy, who, unless hindered chance, was 
likely to strike on the first rock that lay hidden in his 
way. Like all unprotected boys, he loved the first 
woman who threw him a kind look. The cook took 
Cesar under her protection ; and thence followed certain 
secret relations, which the clerks laughed at pitilessly. 
Two years later, the cook happily abandoned Cesar for 
a young recruit belonging to her native place who was 
then hiding in Paris, — a lad twenty years old, owning a 
few acres of land, who let Ursula marry him. 

During those two years the cook had fed her little 
Cesar well, and had explained to him certain mysteries 
of Parisian life, which she made him look at from the 
bottom ; and she impressed upon him, out of jealousy, 
a profound horror of evil places, whose dangers seemed 
not unknown to her. In 1792 the feet of the deserted 
C^sar were well-toughened to the pavements, his shoul- 
ders to the bales, and his mind to what he called the 
“ humbugs ” of Paris. So when Ursula abandoned him 
he was speedily consoled, for she had realized none of 
his instinctive ideas in relation to sentiment. Licen- 
tious and surly, wheedling and pilfering, selfish and a 
tippler, she clashed with the simple nature of Birotteau 
without offering him any compensating perspective. 
Sometimes the poor lad felt with pain that he was bound 
by ties that are strong to hold ingenuous hearts to a crea- 
ture with whom he could not sympathize. By the time 
that he became master of his own heart he had reached 


Cimr Birotteau. 


29 


his giwth, and was sixteen years old. His mind, de- 
veloped by Ursula and by the banter of the clerks, made 
him study commerce with an eye in which intelligence 
was veiled beneath simplicity : he observed the custo- 
mers ; asked in leisure moments for explanations about 
the merchandise, whose divers sorts and proper places 
he retained in his head. The day came when he knew 
all the articles, and their prices and marks, better than 
any new-comer; and from that time Monsieur and 
Madame Ragon made a practice of employing him in 
the business. 

When the terrible levy of the year II. made a clean 
sweep in the shop of citizen Ragon, Cesar Birotteau, 
promoted to be second clerk, profited b}^ the occasion 
to obtain a salary of fifty francs a month, and took his 
seat at the dinner-table of the Ragons with ineflable 
delight. The second clerk of “ The Queen of Roses,” 
possessing already six hundred francs, now had a 
chamber where he could put away, in long-coveted 
articles of furniture, the clothing he had little by little 
got t/ygether. Dressed like other young men of an 
epoch when fashion required the assumption of boorish 
manners, the gentle and modest peasant had an air and 
manner which rendered him at least their equal; and 
he thus passed the barriers which in other times ordi- 
nary life would have placed between himself and the 
bourgeoisie. Towards the end of this year his integrity 
won him a place in the counting-room. The- dignified 
citoyenne Ragon herself looked after his linen, and the 
two shopkeepers became familiar with him. 

In Vend^miaire, 1794, Cesar, who possessed a hun- 
dred louis d’or, changed them for six thousand francs 


30 


CSsar Birotteau, 


in assignats, with which he bought into the Funds at 
thirty, paying for the investment on the very day before 
the paper began its course of depreciation at the Bourse, 
and locking up his securities with unspeakable satisfac- 
tion. From that day forward he watched the move- 
ment of stocks and public affairs with secret anxieties 
of his own, which made him quiver at each rumor of 
the reverses or successes that marked this period of 
our histor}". Monsieur Ragon, formerly perfumer to 
her majesty Queen Marie- Antoinette, confided to Cesar 
Birotteau, during this critical period, his attachment to 
the fallen tyrants. This disclosure was one of the 
cardinal events in Cesar’s life. The nightl}^ conversa- 
tions when the shop was closed, the street quiet, the 
accounts regulated, made a fanatic of the Tourangian, 
who in becoming a royalist obeyed an inborn instinct. 
The recital of the virtuous deeds of Louis XVI., 
the anecdotes with which husband and wife exalted 
the memory of the queen, fired the imagination of the 
young man. The horrible fate of those two crowned 
heads, decapitated a few steps from the shop-door, 
roused his feeling heart and made him hate a system of 
government which was capable of shedding blood with- 
out repugnance. His commercial interests showed him 
the death of trade in the Maximum, and in political 
convulsions, which are always destructive of business. 
Moreover, like a true perfumer, he hated the revolution 
which made a Titus of every man and abolished powder. 
The tranquillity resulting from absolutism could alone, 
he thought, give life to money, and he grew bigoted on 
behalf of royalt}^ When Monsieur Ragon saw that 
Cesar was well disposed on this point, he made him head- 


CSsar Birotteau. 


31 


clerk and initiated him into the secrets of “ The Queen 
of Roses,” several of whose customers were the most 
active and devoted emissaries of the Bourbons, and 
where the correspondence between Paris and the West 
secretly went on. Carried away by the fervor of 
youth, electrified by his intercourse with the Georges, 
the Billardiere, Montauran, Bauvan, Longuy, Manda, 
Bernier, du Guenic, and the Fontaines, Cesar filing 
himself into the conspiracy b}^ which the royalists and 
the terrorists combined on the 13th Vendemiaire against 
the expiring Convention. 

On that day Cesar had the honor of fighting against 
Napoleon on the steps of Saint-Roch, and was wounded 
at the beginning of the aflTair. Every one knows the re- 
sult of that attempt. If the aide-de-camp of Barras 
then issued from his obscurity, the obscurit}’ of Birotteau 
saved the clerk’s life. A few friends carried the bellig- 
erent perfumer to “ The Queen of Roses,” where he re- 
mained hidden in the garret, nursed by Madame Ragon, 
and happily forgotten. Cesar Birotteau never had but 
that one spirt of martial courage. During the month 
his convalescence lasted, he made solid reflections on the 
absurdity of an alliance between politics and perfumery. 
Although he remained royalist, he resolved to be, purely 
and simply, a royalist perfumer, and never more to 
compromise himself, body and soul, for his country. 

On the 18th Brumaire, Monsieur and Madame Ragon, 
despairing of the royal cause, determined to give up 
perfumery, and live like honest bourgeois without med- 
dling in politics. To recover the value of their business, 
it was necessary to find a man who had more integrity 
than ambition, more plain good sense than ability. 


32 


Cimr Birotteau, 


Ragon proposed the affair to his head-clerk. Birotteau, 
now master at twent}^ years of age of a thousand francs 
a year from the public Funds, hesitated. His ambition 
was to live near Chinon as soon as he could get together 
an income of fifteen hundred francs, or whenever the 
First Consul should have consolidated the public debt by 
consolidating himself in the Tuileries. Why should he 
risk his honest and simple independence in commer- 
cial uncertainties? he asked himself. He had never 
expected to win so large a fortune, and he owed it to 
happy chances which only came in early 3"Outh ; he in- 
tended to marry in Touraine some woman rich enough 
to enable him to buy and cultivate Les Tresorieres, a 
little property which, from the dawn of his reason, he 
had coveted, which he dreamed of augmenting, where 
he could make a thousand crowns a year, and where he 
would lead a life of happy obscurity. He was about to 
refuse the offer, when love suddenly changed all his 
resolutions by increasing tenfold the measure of his 
ambition. 

After Ursula’s desertion, C4sar had remained virtu- 
ous, as much through fear of the dangers of Paris as 
from application to his work. When the passions are 
without food they change their wants ; marriage then 
becomes, to persons of the middle class, a fixed idea, 
for it is their only way of winning and appropriating 
a woman. Cesar Birotteau had reached that point. 
Everything at The Queen of Roses ” now rested on the 
head-clerk ; he had not a moment to give to pleasure. 
In such a life wants become imperious, and a chance 
meeting with a beautiful .young woman, of whom a liber- 
tine clerk would scarcelj^ have dreamed, produced on 


C^sar Birotteau, 


33 


C^sar an overpowering effect. On a fine Jfune day, 
crossing by the Pont-Marie to the lie Saint-Louis, he 
saw a young girl standing at the door of a shop at the 
angle of the Quai d’Anjou. Constance Pillerault was the 
forewoman of a linen-draper’s establishment called Le 
Petit Matelot, — the first of those shops which have since 
been established in Paris with more or less of painted 
signs, floating banners, show-cases filled with swinging 
shawls, cravats arranged like houses of cards, and a 
thousand other commercial seductions, such as fixed 
prices, fillets of suspended objects, placards, illusions 
and optical effects carried to such a degree of perfection 
that a shop-front has now become a commercial poem. 
The low price of all the articles called “Novelties” 
which were to be found at the Petit-Matelot gave the 
shop an unheard of vogue, and that in a part of Paris 
which was the least favorable to fashion and commerce. 
The young forewoman was at this time cited for her 
beauty, as was the case in later days with the beautiful 
lemonade-girl of the cafe of the Milles Colonnes, and 
several other poor creatures who flattened more noses, 
young and old, against the window-panes of milliners, 
confectioners, and linen-drapers, than there are stones 
in the streets of Paris. 

The head-clerk of “ The Queen of Roses,” living be- 
tween Saint-Roch and the Rue de la Sourdiere, knew 
nothing of the existence of the Petit-Matelot ; for the 
smaller trades of Paris are more or less strangers to 
each other. Cesar was so vigorously smitten by the 
beauty of Constance that he rushed furiously into the 
shop to buy six linen shirts, disputing the price a long 
time, and requiring volumes of linen to be unfolded 

3 


34 


CSsar Birotteau, 


and shown to him, precisely like an Englishwoman in the 
humor for shopping.” The young person deigned to 
take notice of Cesar, perceiving, bj" certain symptoms 
known to women, that he came more for the seller than 
the goods. He dictated his name and address to the 
young lad}", who grew very indifferent to the admira- 
tion of her customer so soon as the purchase was made. 
The poor clerk had had little to do to win the good 
graces of Ursula ; in such matters he was as silly as 
a sheep, and love now made him sillier. He dared not 
utter a word, and was moreover too dazzled to observe 
the indifference which succeeded the smiles of the syren 
shopwoman. 

For eight succeeding days Cesar mounted guard every 
evening before the Petit- M at elot, watching for a look 
as a dog waits for a bone at the kitchen door, indifferent 
to the derision of the clerks and the shop-girls, humbly 
stepping aside for the buyers and passers-b}", and ab- 
sorbed in the little revolving world of the shop. Some 
days later he again entered the paradise of his angel, 
less to purchase handkerchiefs than to communicate to 
her a luminous idea. 

“If you should have need of perfurneiy. Mademoi- 
selle, I could furnish yon in the same manner,” he said 
as he paid for the handkerchiefs. 

Constance Pillerault was daily receiving brilliant pro- 
posals, in which there was no question of marriage ; and 
though her heart was as pure as her forehead was white, 
it was only after six months of marches and counter- 
marches, in the course of which C(^sar revealed his inex- 
tinguishable love, that she condescended to receive his 
attentions, and even then without committing herself to 


C6%ar Birotteau. 


35 


an answer, — a prudence suggested by the number of her 
swains, wholesale wine-merchants, rich proprietors of 
cafes, and others who made soft e3'es at her. The lover 
was backed up in his suit by the guardian of Constance, 
Monsieur Claude-Joseph Pillerault, at that time an 
ironmonger on the Quai de la Ferraille, whom the 
young man had finally discovered by devoting himself 
to the subterraneous spying which distinguishes a 
genuine love. 

The rapidity of this narrative compels us to pass over 
in silence the jo3'S of Parisian love tasted with inno- 
cence, the prodigalities peculiar to clerkdom, such as 
melons in their earliest prime, choice dinners at V^nua’s 
followed b3" the theatre, Sunday jaunts to the countr3' 
in hackne3’-coaches. Without being handsome, there 
was nothing in Cesar’s person which made it difficult to 
love him. The life of Paris and his sojourn in a dark 
shop had dulled the brightness of his peasant com- 
plexion. His abundant black hair, his solid neck and 
shoulders like those of a Norman horse, his sturdy 
limbs, his honest and straightforward manner, all con- 
tributed to predispose others in his favor. The uncle 
Pillerault, whose duty it was to watch over the happi- 
ness of his brother’s daughter, made inquiries which 
resulted in his sanctioning the wishes of the young 
Tourangian. In the year 1800, and in the pretty month 
of May, Mademoiselle Pillerault consented to marry 
Cesar Birotteau, who fainted with jo3' at the moment 
when, under a linden at Sceaux, Constance-Barbe- 
Josephine Pillerault accepted him as her husband. 

“My little girl,” said Monsieur Pillerault, “3’ou 
have won a good husband. He has a warm heart and 


36 


CSsar Birotteau. 


honorable feelings ; he is true as gold, and as good as 
an infant Jesus, — in fact, a king of men.*' 

Constance franklj^ abdicated the more brilliant des- 
tiny to which, like all shop-girls, she may at times have 
aspired. She wished to be an honest woman, a good 
mother of a family, and looked at life according to the 
religious programme of the middle classes. Such a 
career suited her own ideas far better than the danger- 
ous vanities which seduce so many youthful Parisian 
imaginations. Constance, with her narrow intelligence, 
was a type of the petty bourgeoisie whose labors are not 
performed without grumbling ; who begin by refusing 
what they desire, and end by getting angry when taken 
at their word ; whose restless activity is carried into the 
kitchen and into the counting-room, into the gravest 
matters of business, and into the invisible darns of the 
household linen ; who love while scolding, who conceive 
no ideas but the simplest (the small change of the 
mind) ; who argue about everything, fear everything, 
calculate everything, and fret perpetually over the 
future. Her cold but ingenuous beauty, her touching 
expression, her freshness and purity, prevented Birot- 
teau from thinking of defects, which moreover were 
more than compensated by a delicate sense of honor 
natural to women, by an excessive love of order, by 
a fanaticism for work, and by her genius as a sales- 
woman. Constance was eighteen years old, and pos- 
sessed eleven thousand francs of her own. Cesar, 
inspired by his love with an excessive ambition, bought 
the business of “The Queen of Roses” and removed it 
to a handsome building near the Place Vendbme. At 
the earty age of twenty-one, married to a woman he 


\ 


CSsar Birotteau, 


37 


adored, the proprietor of an establishment for which 
he had paid three quarters of the price down, he had 
the right to view, and did view, the future in glowing 
colors ; all the more when he measured the path which 
led from his original point of departure. Roguin, 
notary of Ragon, who had drawn up the marriage con- 
tract, gave the new perfumer some sound advice, and 
prevented him from pa3dng the whole purchase money 
down with the fortune of his wife. 

“ Keep the means of undertaking some good enter- 
prise, my lad,” he had said to him. 

Birotteau looked up to the notary with admiration, 
fell into the habit of consulting him, and made him his 
friend. Like Ragon and Pillerault, he had so much 
faith in the profession that he gave himself up to Roguin 
without allowing himself a suspicion. Thanks to this 
advice, C^sar, supplied with the eleven thousand francs 
of his wife for his start in business, would have scorned 
to exchange his possessions for those of the First Con- 
sul, brilliant as the prospects of Napoleon might seem. 
At first the Birotteaus kept only a cook, and lived in 
the entresol above the shop, — a sort of den tolerably 
well decorated by an upholsterer, where the bride and 
bridegroom began a honeymoon that was never to end. 
Madame Cesar appeared to advantage behind the coun- 
ter. Her celebrated beaut}^ had an enormous infiuence 
upon the sales, and the beautiful Madame Birotteau be- 
came a topic among the fashionable young men of the 
Empire. If Cdsar was sometimes accused of royalism, 
the world did justice to his honesty ; if a few neigh- 
boring shopkeepers envied his happiness, every one at 
least thought him worthy of it. The bullet which struck 


38 


CSmr Birotteau. 


him on the steps of Saint-Roch gave him the reputation 
of being mixed up with political secrets, and also of 
being a courageous man, — though he had no military’ 
courage in his heart, and not the smallest political idea 
in his brain. Upon these grounds the worthy people of 
the arrondissement made him captain of the National 
Guard ; but he was cashiered by Napoleon, who, accord- 
ing to Birotteau, owed him a grudge for their encounter 
on the 13th Venderniaire. Cesar thus obtained at a 
cheap rate a varnish of persecution, which made him 
interesting in the eyes of the opposition, and gave him 
a certain importance. 

Such was the history of this household, lastingly 
happy through its feelings, and agitated only by com- 
mercial anxieties. 

During the first year Cesar instructed his wife about 
the sales of their merchandise and the details of perfu- 
mery, — a business which she understood admirably. 
She reall}’ seemed to have been created and sent into 
the world to fit on the gloves of customers. At the 
close of that year the assets staggered our ambitious 
perfumer ; all costs calculated, he would be able in less 
than twenty years to make a modest capital of one hun- 
dred thousand francs, which was the sum at which he 
estimated their happiness. He then resolved to reach 
fortune more rapidly, and determined to manufacture 
articles as well as retail them. Contrary to the advice 
of his wife, he hired some sheds, with the ground about 
them, in the Faubourg du Temple, and painted upon 
them in big letters, “ Manufactory of Cesar Birotteau.” 
He enticed a skilful workman from Grasse, with whom 


Ce%ar Birotteau, 


39 


he began, on equal shares, the manufacture of soaps, 
essences, and eau-de-cologne. His connection with this 
man lasted only six months, and ended by losses which 
fell upon him alone. Without allowing himself to be 
discouraged, Birotteau determined to get better results 
at any price, solely to avoid being scolded bj^ his 
wife, — to whom he acknowledged later that in those 
depressing daj’s his head had boiled like a saucepan, 
and that several times, if it had not been for his re- 
ligious sentiments, he should have flung himself into 
the Seine. 

Harassed by some unprofitable enterprise, he was 
lounging one day along the boulevard on his way to 
dinner, — for the Parisian lounger is as often a man 
fillfed with despair as an idler, — when among a parcel 
of books for six sous a-piece, laid out in a hamper on 
the pavement, his eyes lighted on the following title, 
yellow with dust ; “ Abdeker, or the Art of Preserving 
Beauty.” He picked up the so-called Arab book, a 
sort of romance written by a physician of the preced- 
ing century, and happened on a page which related to 
perfumes. Leaning against a tree on the boulevard to 
turn over the leaves at his ease, he read a note by the 
author which explained the nature of the skin and the 
cuticle, and showed that a certain soap, or a certain 
paste, often produced effects quite contrary to those ex- 
pected of them, if the soap and the paste toned up a skin 
which needed relaxing, or relaxed a skin which required 
tonics. Birotteau bought the book, in which he saw 
his fortune. Nevertheless, having little confidence in 
his own lights, he consulted a celebrated chemist, Vau- 
quelin, from whom he naively inquired how to mix a 


40 


Cisar Birotteau, 


two-sided cosmetic which should produce effects appro* 
priate to the diversified nature of the human epidermis. 
Truly scientific men — men who are really great in the 
sense that they never attain in their lifetime the renown 
which their immense and unrecognized labors deserve — 
are nearly always kind, and willing to serve the poor in 
spirit. Vauquelin accordingly patronized the perfumer, 
and allowed him to call himself the inventor of a paste 
to whiten the hands, the composition of which he dic- 
tated to him. Birotteau named this cosmetic the “ Double 
Paste of Sultans.” To complete the work, he applied 
the same recipe to the manufacture of a lotion for the 
complexion, which he called the “ Carminative Balm.” 
He imitated in his own line the system of the Petit- 
Matelot, and was the first perfumer to display that 
redundancy of placards, advertisements, and other 
methods of publication which are called, perhaps un- 
justly, charlatanism. 

The Paste of Sultans and the Carminative Balm were 
ushered into the world of fashion and commerce by 
colored placards, at the head of which were these 
words, “ Approved by the Institute.” This formula, 
used for the first time, had a magical effect. Not only 
all France, but the continent flaunted with the posters, 
yellow, red, and blue, of the monarch of “ The Queen 
of Roses,” who kept in stock, supplied, and manufac- 
tured, at moderate prices, all that belonged to his trade. 
At a period when nothing was talked of but the East, 
to name any sort of cosmetic the “Paste of Sultans,” 
thus divining the magic force of such words in a land 
where every man hoped to be a sultan as much as every 
woman longed to be a sultana, was an inspiration which 


CSsar Birotteau* 


41 


could only have come to a common man or a man of 
genius. The public always judges by results. Birot- 
teau passed for a superior man, commercially speaking ; 
all the more because he compiled a prospectus whose 
ridiculous phraseology was an element of success. In 
France they only make fun of things which occupy the 
public mind, and the public does not occupy itself with 
things that do not succeed. Though Birotteau perpe- 
trated this folly in good faith and not as a trick, the 
world gave him credit for knowing how to play the fool 
for a purpose. We have found, not without difficulty, a 
copy of this prospectus at the establishment of Popinot 
& Co., druggists. Rue des Lombards. This curious 
document belongs to the class which, in a higher sphere, 
historians C2\\ pieces justijicatives. We give it here : 

THE DOUBLE PASTE OF SULTANS 
AND CARMINATIVE BALM 
Op CiiSAK Bieotteau. 

MARVELLOUS DISCOVERY! 

Approved by the Institute of France. 

“ For many years a paste for the hands and a lotion for 
the face offering superior results to those obtained from Eau- 
de-Cologne in the domain of the toilet, has been widely 
sought by both sexes in Europe. Devoting long vigils to 
the study of the skin and cuticle of the two sexes, each 
of whom, one as much as the other, attach the utmost im- 
portance to the softness, suppleness, brilliancy, and velvet 
texture of the complexion, the Sieur Birotteau, perfumer, 
favorably known in this metropolis and abroad, has dis- 
covered a Paste and a Lotion justly hailed as marvellous 


42 


C^zar Birotteau. 


by the fashion and elegance of Paris. In point of fact, this 
Paste and this Lotion possess amazing properties which act 
upon the skin without prematurely wrinkling it, — the in- 
evitable result ot drugs thoughtlessly employed, and sold 
in these days by ignorance and cupidity. This discovery 
rests upon diversities of temperament, which divide them- 
selves into two great classes, indicated by the color of the 
Paste and the Lotion, which will be found pink for the skin 
and cuticle of persons of lymphatic habit, and white for those 
possessed of a sanguine temperament. 

“ This Paste is named the ‘ Paste of Sultans,’ because the 
discovery was originally made for the Seraglio by an Arabian 
physician. It has been approved by the Institute on the 
recommendation of our illustrious chemist, Vauquelin; to- 
gether with the Lotion, fabricated on the same principles 
which govern the composition of the Paste. 

“ This precious Paste, exhaling as it does the sweetest 
perfumes, removes all blotches, even those that are obsti- 
nately rebellious, whitens the most recalcitrant epidermis, 
and dissipates the perspirations of the hand, of which both 
sexes equally complain. 

“ The Carminative Balm will disperse the little pimples 
which appear inopportunely at certain times, and interfere 
with a lady’s projects for a ball; it refreshes and revives 
the color by opening or shutting the pores of the skin accord- 
ing to the exigencies of the individual temperament. It is 
so well known already for its effect in arresting the ravages 
of time that many, out of gratitude, have called it the 
‘ Friend of Beauty.’ 

“ Eau-de-Cologne is, purely and simply, a trivial perfume 
without special efficacy of any kind; while the Double Paste 
of Sultans and th^ Carminative Balm are two operative com- 
pounds, of a motive power which acts without risk upon the 
internal energies and seconds them. Their perfumes (essen- 
tially balsamic, and of a stimulating character which admir- 
ably revives the heart and brain) awake ideas and vivify 


CSsar Birotteau, 


4B 


them ; they are as wonderful for their simplicity as for their 
merits. In short, they offer one attraction the more to wo- 
men, and to men a means of seduction which it is within 
their power to secure. 

“ The daily use of the Balm will relieve the smart occa- 
sioned by the heat of the razor ; it will protect the lips from 
chapping, and restore their color ; it dispels in time all dis- 
colorations, and revives the natural tones of the skin. Such 
results demonstrate in man a perfect equilibrium of the 
juices of life, which tends to relieve all persons subject to 
headache from the sufferings of that horrible malady. 
Finally, the Carminative Balm, which can be employed by 
women in all stages of their toilet, will prevent cutaneous 
diseases by facilitating the transpiration of the tissues, and 
communicating to them a permanent texture like that of 
velvet. 

“Address, post-paid. Monsieur Cesar Birotteau, successor 
to Ragon, former perfumer to the Queen Marie Antoinette, 
at The Queen of Roses, Rue Saint-Honore, Paris, near the 
Place Vendome. 

“ The price of a cake of Paste is three francs; that of the 
bottle six francs. 

“ Monsieur Cesar Birotteau, to avoid counterfeits, informs the 
public that the Paste is wrapped in paper bearing his signature, 
and that the bottles have a stamp blown in the glass.” 

The success was owing, without Cdsar’s suspecting 
it, to Constance, who advised him to send cases of the 
Carminative Balm and the Paste of Sultans to all per- 
fumers in France and in foreign cities, offering them at 
the same time a discount of thirty per cent if they 
would buy the two articles by the gross. The Paste 
and the Balm were, in reality, worth more than other 
cosmetics of the sort; and they captivated ignorant 


44 


CSsar Birotteau, 


people by the distinctions they set up among the tern 
peraments. The five hundred perfumers of France 
allured by the discount, each bought annually fim. 
Birotteau more than three hundred gross of the Paste 
and the Lotion, — a consumption which, if it gave only 
a limited profit on each article, became enormous con- 
sidered in bulk. C4sar was then able to buy the huts 
and the land in the Faubourg du Temple ; he built large 
manufactories, and decorated his shop at “ The Queen of 
Roses” with much magnificence ; his household began 
to taste the little jo 3 's of competence, and his wife no 
longer trembled as before. 

In 1810 Madame Cesar, foreseeing a rise in rents, 
pushed her husband into becoming chief tenant of the 
house where the}^ had hitherto occupied onlj" the shop 
and the entresol^ and advised him to remove their own 
appartement to the first floor. A fortunate event in- 
duced Constance to shut her e\^es to the follies which 
Birotteau committed for her sake in fitting up the new 
appartement. The perfumer had just been elected 
judge in the commercial courts : his integrity, his well- 
known sense of honor, and the respect he enjo 3 "ed, 
earned for him this dignit 3 ", which ranked him hence- 
forth among the leading merchants of Paris. To im- 
prove his knowledge, he rose daily at five o’clock, and 
read law-reports and books treating of commercial 
litigation. His sense of justice, his rectitude, his con- 
scientious intentions, — qualities essential to the under- 
standing of questions submitted for consular decision, 
— soon made him highly esteemed among the judges. 
His defects contributed not a little to his reputation. 
Conscious of his inferiority, Cesar subordinated his 


CSsar Birotteau, 


45 


own views to those of his colleagues, who were flat- 
tered in being thus deferred to. Some sought the 
silent approbation of a man held to be sagacious, 
in his capacity of listener ; others, charmed with his 
modesty and gentleness, praised him publicly. Plain- 
tiffs and defendants extolled his kindness, his con- 
ciliator}" spirit ; and he was often chosen umpire in con- 
tests where his own good sense would have suggested 
the swift justice of a Turkish cadi. During his whole 
period in oflSce he contrived to use language which was 
a medley of commonplaces mixed with maxims and com- 
putations served up in flowing phrases mildly put forth, 
which sounded to the ears of superficial people like elo- 
quence. Thus he pleased that great majority, mediocre 
by nature, who are condemned to perpetual labor and 
to views which are of the earth earthy. C4sar, how- 
ever, lost so much time in court that his wife obliged 
him finally to resign the expensive dignity. 

Towards 1813, the Birotteau household, thanks to 
its constant harmon}", and after steadily plodding on 
through life, saw the dawn of an era of prosperity 
which nothing seemed likely to interrupt. Monsieur 
and Madame Ragon, their predecessors, the uncle Pille- 
rault, Roguin the notary, the Messrs. Matifat, drug- 
gists in the Rue des Lombards and purveyors to “The 
Queen of Roses,” Joseph Lebas, woollen draper and 
successor to the Messrs. Guillaume at the Maison du 
Chat-qui-pelote (one of the luminaries of the Rue Saint- 
Denis), Popinot the judge, brother of Madame Ragon, 
Chiflreville of the firm of Protez & Chiffreville, Mon- 
sieur and Madame Cochin, employed in the treasury’ 
department and sleeping partners in the house of 


46 


CiBar Birotteau. 


Matifat, the Abb4 Loraux, confessor and director of the 
pious members of this coterie, with a few other persons, 
made up the circle of their friends. In spite of the 
royalist sentiments of Birotteau, public opinion was in 
his favor ; he was considered very rich, though in fact 
he possessed only a hundred thousand francs over and 
above his business. The regularity of his affairs, his 
punctuality, his habit of making no debts, of never 
discounting his paper, and of taking, on the contrarj", 
safe securities from those whom he could thus oblige, 
together with his general amiabilit}’^, won him enor- 
mous credit. His household cost him nearly twenty 
thousand francs a 3 ’ear, and the education of Cesarine, 
an only daughter, idolized by Constance as well as by 
himself, necessitated heavy expenses. Neither husband 
nor wife considered monej" when it was a question of 
giving pleasure to their child, from whom they had 
never been willing to separate. Imagine the happi- 
ness of the poor parvenu peasant as he listened to his 
charming Cesarine playing a sonata of Steibelt’s on 
the piano, and singing a ballad ; or when he found her 
writing the French language correctly", or reading Ka- 
cine, father and son, and explaining their beauties, or 
sketching a landscape, or painting in sepia ! What joy 
to live again in a flower so pure, so lovety, which had 
never left the maternal stem ; an angel whose budding 
graces and whose earliest developments he had passion- 
ately watched ; an only daughter, incapable of despis* 
ing her father, or of ridiculing his defective education, 
so truly was she an ingenuous young girl. 

When he flrst came to Paris, Cesar had known how 
to read, write, and cipher^ but his education stopped 



Copjri^lit i8g6 ^ Roberts Bros 




? G Jeajiniot 


FVocede Coupii 


» 


CSsar Birotteau. 


47 


there ; his laborious life had kept him from acquiring 
ideas and knowledge outside the business of perfumery. 
Mixing wholly with people to whom science and letters 
were of no importance, and whose information did not 
go beyond their specialty, having no time to give to 
higher studies, the perfumer had become a merely 
practical man. He adopted necessarily the language, 
blunders, and opinions of the bourgeois of Paris, who 
admires Moliere, Voltaire, and Rousseau on faith, and 
buj's their books without ever reading them ; who 
maintains that people should say ormoires^ because 
women put away their gold and their dresses of moire 
in those articles of furniture, and that it is only a 
corruption of the language to say armoires. Potier, 
Talma, and Mademoiselle Mars were ten times million- 
naires, and did not live like other human beings ; the 
great tragedian ate raw meat, and Mademoiselle Mars 
sometimes drank dissolved pearls, in imitation of a 
celebrated Egj^ptian actress. The Emperor had leather 
pockets in his waistcoat, so that he could take his snuff 
by the handful ; he rode on horseback at full gallop up 
the stairway of the orangery at Versailles. Writers 
and artists died in the hospital, as a natural conse- 
quence of their eccentricities ; they were, moreover, all 
atheists, and people should be very careful not to admit 
them into their households. Joseph Lebas cited with 
horror the history" of his step-sister Augustine’s mar- 
riage with the painter Sommervieux. Astronomers 
lived on spiders. 

These striking points of information on the French 
language, on dramatic art, politics, literature, and sci- 
ence, w'ill explain the bearings of the bourgeois intellect 


48 


Cimr Birotteau. 


A poet passing through the Rue des Lombards may 
dream of Araby as he inhales certain perfumes. He 
may admire the danseuses in a chauderie^ as he breathes 
the odors of an Indian root. Dazzled by the blaze of 
cochineal, he recalls the poems of the Veda, the reli- 
gion of Brahma and its castes ; brushing against piles 
of ivory in the rough, he mounts the backs of elephants ; 
seated in a muslin cage, he makes love like the King 
of Lahore. But the little retail merchant is ignorant 
from whence have come, or where may grow, the pro- 
ducts in which he deals. Birotteau, perfumer, did not 
know an iota of natural history, nor of chemistry. 
Though regarding Vauquelin as a great man, he thought 
him an exception, — of about the same capacity as the 
retired grocer who summed up a discussion on the 
method of importing teas, by remarking with a know- 
ing air, “There are but two ways: tea comes either 
by caravan, or by Havre.” According to Birotteau, 
aloes and opium were only to be found in the Rue des 
Lombards. Rosewater, said to be brought from Con- 
stantinople, was made in Paris like eau-de-cologne. 
The names of these places were shams, invented to 
please Frenchmen who could not endure the things 
of their own country. A French merchant must call 
his discoveries English to make them fashionable, 
just as in England the druggists attribute theirs to 
France. 

Nevertheless, Cesar was incapable of being wholly 
stupid or a fool. Honesty and goodness cast upon all 
the acts of his life a light which made them creditable ; 
for noble conduct makes even ignorance seem worth}". 
Success gave him confidence. In Paris confidence is 


CSsar Birotteau. 


49 


accepted as power, of which it is the outward sign. 
As for Madame Birotteau, having measured Cesar dur- 
ing the first three years of their married life, she was 
a prey to continual terror. She represented in their 
union the sagacious and fore-casting side, — doubt, 
opposition, and fear ; while Cesar, on the other hand, 
was the embodiment of audacity, energy, and the in- 
expressible delights of fatalism. Yet in spite of these 
appearances the husband often quaked, while the wife, 
in reality, was possessed of patience and true courage. 

Thus it happened that a man who was both mediocre 
and pusillanimous, without education, without ideas, 
without knowledge, without force of character, and who 
might be expected not to succeed in the slipperiest city 
in the world, came by his principles of conduct, by 
his sense of justice, by the goodness of a heart that 
was truly Christian, and through his love for the only 
woman he had really won, to be considered as a re- 
markable man, courageous, and full of resolution. The 
public saw results onl3\ Excepting Pillerault and Popi- 
not the judge, all the people of his own circle knew 
him superficially, and were unable to judge him. More- 
over, the twenty or thirty friends he had collected about 
him talked the same nonsense, repeated the same com- 
monplaces, and all thought themselves superior in their 
own line. The women vied with each other in dress 
and good dinners ; each had said her all when she 
dropped a contemptuous word about her husband. 
Madame Birotteau alone had the good sense to treat 
hers with honor and respect in public ; she knew him 
to be a man who, in spite of his secret disabihties, had 
earned their fortune, and whose good name she shared. 

4 


50 


Cimr Birotteau. 


It is true that she sometimes asked herself what sort of 
world this could be, if all the men who were thought 
superior were like her husband. Such conduct con- 
tributed not a little to maintain the respectful esteem 
bestowed upon the perfumer in a community where 
women are much inclined to complain of their husbands 
and bring them into discredit. 

The first days of the year 1814, so fatal to imperial 
France, were marked at the Birotteaus by two events, 
not especially remarkable in other households, but of a 
nature to impress such simple souls as C^sar and his 
wife, who casting their e3’es along the past could find no- 
thing but tender memories. They had taken as head- 
clerk a youug man twenty-two ^^ears of age, named 
Ferdinand du Tibet. This lad — who had just left a 
perfumery where he was refused a share in the busi- 
ness, and who was reckoned a genius — had made great 
efforts to get employed at ^‘The Queen of Roses,” 
whose methods, facilities, and customs were well known 
to him. Birotteau took him, and gave him a salar^^ of 
a thousand francs, intending to make him eventually 
his successor. 

Ferdinand had so great an influence on the destinies 
of this family that it is necessary to say a few words 
about him. In the first place he was named simpl}" Fer- 
dinand, without surname. This anonymous condition 
seemed to him an immense advantage at the time when 
Napoleon conscripted all families to fill the ranks. He 
was, however, born somewhere, as the result of some 
cruel and voluptuous caprice. The following are the 
only facts preserved about his civil condition. In 1793 


Cesar Birotteau, 


61 


a poor girl of Tillet, a village near Andelys, came by 
night and gave birth to a child in the garden of the 
curate of the church at Tillet, and after rapping on 
the window-shutters went away and drowned herself, 
'rhe good priest took the child, gave him the name of 
the saint inscribed on the calendar for that day, and 
ted and brought him up as his own son. The curate 
died in 1804, without leaving enough property to carry 
on the education he had begun. Ferdinand, thrown 
upon Paris, led a filibustering life whose chances might 
bring him to the scaflbld, to fortune, the bar, the 
army, commerce, or domestic life. Obliged to live like 
a Figaro, he was first a commercial traveller, then a 
perfumer’s clerk in Paris, where he turned up after trav- 
ersing all France, having studied the world and made 
up his mind to succeed at any price. 

In 1813 Ferdinand thought it necessary to register his 
age, and obtain a civil standing by applying to the courts 
at Andelys for a judgment, which should enable his 
baptismal record to be transferred from the registry of 
the parish to that of the mayor’s office ; and he obtained 
permission to rectify the document by inserting the 
name of du Tillet, under which he was known, and 
which legally belonged to him through the fact of his 
exposure and abandonment in that township. Without 
father, mother, or other guardian than the procureur 
imperial^ alone in the world and owing no duty to any 
man, he found society a hard stepmother, and he han- 
dled it, in his turn, without gloves, — as the Turks the 
Moors ; he knew no guide but his own interests, and 
any means to fortune he considered good. This young 
Norman, gifted with dangerous abilities, coupled his 


52 


Ci%ar Birotteau, 


desires for success with the harsh defects which, justly 
or unjustly, are attributed to the natives of his province. 
A wheedling manner cloaked a quibbling mind, for he 
was in truth a hard judicial wrangler. But if he boldly 
contested the rights of others, he certainly yielded none 
of his own ; he attacked his adversar}" at the right mo- 
ment, and wearied him out with his inflexible persist- 
ency. His merits were those of the Scapins of ancient 
comedy ; he had their fertility of resource, their clever- 
ness in skirting evil, their itching to lay hold of aU that 
was good to keep. In short, he applied to his own 
poverty a saying which the Abb4 Terray uttered in the 
name of the State, — he kept a loophole to become in 
after j’^ears an honest man. Gifted with passionate 
energy, with a boldness that was almost military in re- 
quiring good as well as evil actions from those about 
him, and justif3ung such demands on the theory of per- 
sonal interest, he despised men too much, believing 
them all corruptible, he was too unscrupulous in the 
choice of means, thinking all equally good, he was too 
thoroughly convinced that the success of monej' was the 
absolution of all moral mechanism, not to attain his 
ends sooner or later. 

Such a man, standing between the hulks and a vast 
fortune, was necessarily^ vindictive, domineering, quick 
in decisions, y^et as dissimulating as a Cromwell plan- 
ning to decapitate the head of integrity. His real 
depth was hidden under a light and jesting mind. Mere 
clerk as he was, his ambition knew no bounds. With 
one comprehensive glance of hatred he had taken in 
the whole of society, saying boldly to himself, “ Thou 
shaft be mine ! ” He had vowed not to maiTy till he 


CSsar Birotteau. 


63 


was forty, and kept his word. ' Physically, Ferdinand 
was a tall, slender young man, with a good figure and 
adaptive manners, which enabled him to take, on occa- 
sion, the key-note of the various societies in which he 
found himself. His ignoble face was rather pleasant at 
first sight ; but later, on closer acquaintance, expressions 
were caught such as come to the surface of those who 
are ill at ease in their own minds, and whose consciences 
groan at certain times. His complexion, which was 
sanguine under the soft skin of a Norman, had a crude 
or acrid color. The glance of his eye, whose iris was 
circled with a whitish rim as if it were lined with silver, 
was evasive yet terrible when he fixed it straiglit upon 
his victim. His voice had a hollow sound, like that of 
a man worn out with much speaking. His thin lips 
were not wanting in charm, but his pointed nose and 
slightl}" projecting forehead showed defects of race; 
and his hair, of a tint hke hair that has been dyed 
black, indicated a mongrel descent, through which he 
derived his mental qualities from some libertine lord, 
his low instincts from a seduced peasant-girl, his knowl- 
edge from an incomplete education, and his vices from 
his deserted and abandoned condition. 

Birotteau discovered with much amazement that his 
clerk went out in the evening very elegantly dressed, 
came home late, and was seen at the balls of bankers 
and notaries. Such habits displeased Cesar, according 
to whose ideas clerks should study the books of the firm 
and think only of their business. The worthy man was 
shocked by trifies, and reproached du Tillet gently for 
wearing linen that was too fine, for leaving cards on 
which his name was inscribed, F. du Tillet, — a fashion, 


64 


CSsar Birotteau. 


according to commercial jurisprudence, which belonged 
only to the great world. Ferdinand had entered the 
employ of this Orgon with the intentions of a Tartuffe. 
He paid court to Madame Cesar, tried to seduce her, 
and judged his master very much as the wife judged 
him herself, and all with alarming rapidity. Though 
discreet, reserved, and accustomed to say only what he 
meant to say, du Tillet unbosomed his opinions on men 
and life in a way to shock a scrupulous woman who 
shared the religious feelings of her husband, and who 
thought it a crime to do the least harm to a neighbor. 
In spite of Madame Birotteau’s caution, du Tillet sus- 
pected the contempt in which she held him. Constance, 
to whom Ferdinand had written a few love-letters, soon 
noticed a change in his manners, which grew presuming, 
as if intended to convey the idea of a mutual good un- 
derstanding. Without giving the secret reason to her 
husband, she advised him to send Ferdinand away. 
Birotteau agreed with his wife, and the dismissal was 
determined upon. 

Two days before it was carried into effect, on a 
Saturday night when Birotteau was making up his 
monthlj" accounts, three thousand francs were found 
to be missing. His consternation was dreadful, less 
for the loss than for the suspicions which fell upon 
three clerks, one cook, a shop-boy, and several habitual 
workmen. On whom should he lay the blame? Ma- 
dame Birotteau never left her counter. The clerk who 
had charge of the desk was a nephew of Monsieur 
Ragon named Popinot, a young man nineteen years 
old, who lived with the Birotteaus and was integrity 
itself. His figures, which disagreed with the money in 


CSsar Birotteau. 


55 


the desk, revealed the deficit, and showed that the 
abstraction had been made after the balance had been 
added up. Husband and wife resolved to keep silence 
and watch the house. On the following da}*, Sunday, 
they received their friends. The families who made 
up their coterie met at each other’s houses for little 
festivities, turn and turn about. While placing at 
hoxdllote^ Roguin the notary placed on the card-table 
some old louis d’or which Madame Cesar had taken only 
a few days before from a bride, Madame d’Espart. 

‘‘ Have 3^ou been robbing the poor-box?” asked the 
perfumer, laughing. 

Roguin replied that he had won the money, at the 
house of a banker, from du Tillet, who confirmed the 
answer without blushing. Cesar, on the other hand, 
grew scarlet. When the evening was over, and just as 
Ferdinand was going to bed, Birotteau took him into 
the shop on a pretext of business. 

‘"Du Tillet,” said the worthy man, “three thou- 
sand francs are missing from the desk. I suspect no 
one ; but the circumstance of the old louis seems too 
much against you not to oblige me to speak of it. We 
will not go to bed till we have found where the error 
lies, — for, after all, it may be only an error. Perhaps 
you took something on account of 3’our salary ? ” 

Du Tillet said at once that he had taken the louis. 
The perfumer opened his ledger and found that his 
clerk’s account had not been debited. 

“ I was in a hurry ; but I ought to have made Poph 
not enter the sum,” said Ferdinand. 

“That is true,” said Birotteau, bewildered by the 
cool unconcern of the Norman, who well knew the 


56 


Cesar Birotteau. 


worthy people among whom he had come meaning to 
make his fortune. The perfumer and his clerk passed 
the whole night in examining accounts, a labor which 
the good man knew to be useless. In coming and 
going about the desk Cesar slipped three bills of a 
thousand francs each into the money-drawer, catching 
them against the top of it ; then he pretended to be 
much fatigued and to fall asleep and snore. Du Tillet 
awoke him triumphantly, with an excessive show of joy 
at discovering the error. The next day Birotteau 
scolded little Popinot and his wife pubhcl^s as if ver}^ 
angry with them for their negligence. Fifteen days 
later Ferdinand du Tillet got a situation with a stock- 
broker. He said perfumery did not suit him, and he 
wished to learn banking. In leaving Birotteau, he spoke 
of Madame Cesar in a way to make people suppose that 
his master had dismissed him out of jealousy. A few 
months later, however, du Tillet went to see Birotteau 
and asked his indorsement for twenty thousand francs, 
to enable him to make up the securities he needed in an 
enterprise which was to put him on the high-road to 
fortune. Observing the surprise which C^sar showed 
at this impudence, du Tillet frowned, and asked if he 
had no confidence in him. Matifat and two other mer- 
chants, who were present on business with Birotteau, 
also observed the indignation of the perfumer, who 
repressed his anger in their presence. Du Tillet, he 
thought, might have become an honest man ; his previ- 
ous fault might have been committed for some mistress 
in distress or from losses at cards ; the public reproba- 
tion of an honest man might drive one still young, and 
Possibly repentant, into a career of crime. So this 


Cimr Birotteau. 


67 


angel took up his pen and indorsed du Tillet’s notes, 
telling him that he was heartily willing thus to oblige 
a lad who had been very useful to him. The blood 
rushed to his face as he uttered the falsehood. Du 
Tillet could not meet his eye, and no doubt vowed to 
him at that moment the undying hatred which the spirits 
of darkness feel towards the angels of light. 

From this time du Tillet held his balance-pole so well 
as he danced the tight-rope of financial speculation, that 
he was rich and elegant in appearance before he became 
so in reality. As soon as he got a cabriolet he was 
always in it; he kept himself in the high sphere of 
those who mingle business with pleasure, and make the 
foyer of the opera-house a branch of the Bourse, — in 
short, the Turcarets of the period. Thanks to Madame 
Roguin, whom he had known at the Birotteau’s, he was 
received at once among people of the highest standing 
in finance ; and, at the moment of which we write, he 
had reached a prosperity in which there was nothing 
fictitious. He was on the best terms with the house of 
Nucingen, to which Roguin had introduced him, and he 
had promptly become connected with the brothers Keller 
and with several other great banking-houses. No one 
knew from whence this 3"Outh had derived the immense 
capital which he handled, but every one attributed hid 
success to his intelligence and his integrit3\ 

The Restoration made C^sar a personage, and the 
turmoil of political crises naturally lessened his recol- 
lection of these domestic misadventures. The con- 
stancy of his royalist opinions (to which he had become 
exceedingl3^ indifferent since his wound, though he re- 


58 


Cesar Birotteau, 


mained faithful to them out of decency) and the memory 
of his devotion in Vendemiaire won him very high 
patronage, precisely because he had asked for none. 
He was appointed major in the National Guard, 
although he was utterly incapable of giving the word 
of command. In 1815 Napoleon, always his enemy, 
dismissed him. During the Hundred Days Birotteau 
was the bugbear of the liberals of his quarter ; for it 
was not until 1815 that differences of political opinion 
grew up among merchants, who had hitherto been unani- 
mous in their desires for public tranquillity, of which, 
as they knew, business affairs stood much in need. 

At the second Restoration the roj^al government was 
obliged to remodel the municipality of Paris. The pre- 
fect wished to nominate Birotteau as ma^’or. Thanks 
to his wife, the perfumer would only accept the place of 
deputy-mayor, which brought him less before the public. 
Such modesty increased the respect generally felt for 
him, and won him the friendship of the new mayor. Mon- 
sieur Flamet de la Billardiere. Birotteau, who had seen 
him in the shop in the days when “The Queen of Roses” 
was the headquarters of royalist conspiracy, mentioned 
him to the prefect of the Seine when that official con- 
sulted Cesar on the choice to be made. Monsieur and 
Madame Birotteau were therefore never forgotten in the 
invitations of the mayor. Madame Birotteau frequently 
took up the collections at Saint-Roch in the best of good 
company. La Billardiere warmly supported Birotteau 
when the question of bestowing the crosses given to the 
municipality came up, and dwelt upon his wound at 
Saint-Roch, his attachment to the Bourbons, and the 
respect which he enjoyed. The government, wishing 


CSsar Birotteau. 


69 


on the one hand to cheapen Napoleon’s order by lav- 
ishing the cross of the Legion of honor, and on the 
other to win adherents and rally to the Bourbons the 
various trades and men of arts and sciences, included 
Birotteau in the coming promotion. This honor, which 
suited well with the show that Cesar made in his 
arrondissement, put him in a position where the ideas 
of a man accustomed to succeed naturally enlarged 
themselves. The news which the mayor had just given 
him of his preferment was the determining reason that 
decided him to plunge into the scheme which he now 
for the first time revealed to his wife ; he believed it 
would enable him to give up perfumery all the more 
quickly, and rise into the regions of the higher bour- 
geoisie of Paris. 

Cesar was now forty j^ears old. The work he had 
undertaken in his manufactories had given him a few 
premature wrinkles, and had slightly silvered the thick 
tufts of hair on which the pressure of his hat left a 
shining circle. His forehead, where the hair grew in 
a way to mark five distinct points, showed the simpli- 
city of his life. The heavy eyebrows were not alarm- 
ing because the limpid glance of his frank blue eyes 
harmonized with the open forehead of an honest man. 
His nose, broken at the bridge and thick at the end, 
gave him the wondering look of a gaby in the streets 
of Paris. His lips were very thick, and his large chin 
fell in a straight line below them. His face, high- 
colored and square in outline, revealed, by the lines 
of its wrinkles and by the general character of its ex- 
pression, the ingenuous craftiness of a peasant. The 
strength of his body, the stoutness of his limbs, the 


60 


Cesar Birotteau, 


squareness of his shoulders, the width of his feet, — 
all denoted the villager transplanted to Paris. His 
powerful hairy hands, with their large square nails, 
would alone have attested his origin if other vestiges 
had not remained on various parts of his person. His 
lips wore the cordial smile which shopkeepers put on 
when a customer enters ; but this comfnercial sunshine 
was really the image of his inward content, and pic- 
tured the state of his kindly soul. His distrust never 
went beyond the lines of his business, his craftiness left 
him on the steps of the Bourse, or when he closed the 
pages of his ledger. Suspicion was to him very much 
what his printed bill-heads were, — a necessity of the 
sale itself. His countenance presented a sort of comi- 
cal assurance and conceit mingled with good nature, 
which gave it originality and saved it from too close a 
resemblance to the insipid face of a Parisian bourgeois, 
Without this air of naive self-admiration and faith in his 
own person, he would have won too much respect; he 
drew nearer to his fellows by thus contributing his quota 
of absurdit}’. When speaking, he habitually crossed 
his hands behind his back. When he thought he had 
said something striking or gallknt, he rose impercep- 
tibly on the points of his toes twice, and dropped back 
heavily on his heels, as if to emphasize what he said. 
In the midst of an argument he might be seen turning 
round upon himself and walking off a few steps, as if 
he had gone to find objections with which he returned 
upon his adversary brusquely. He never interrupted, 
and was sometimes a victim to this careful observance 
of civility ; for others would take the words out of his 
mouth, and the good man had to yield his ground with- 


CSsar Birotteau, 


61 


out opening his lips. His great experience in com- 
mercial matters had given him a few fixed habits, which 
some people called eccentricities. If a note were over- 
due he sent for the bailiff, and thought only of recov- 
ering capital, interest, and costs ; and the bailiff was 
ordered to pursue the matter until the debtor went into 
bankruptcy. C4sar then stopped all proceedings, never 
appeared at any meeting of creditors, and held on to his 
securities. He adopted this system and his implacable 
contempt for bankrupts from Monsieur Ragon, who in 
the course of his commercial life had seen such loss of 
time in litigation that he had come to look upon the 
meagre and uncertain dividends obtained by such com- 
promises as fully counterbalanced by a better employ- 
ment of the time spent in coming and going, in making 
proposals, or in listening to excuses for dishonesty. 

“If the bankrupt is an honest man, and recovers 
himself, he will pay you,’’ Ragon would sa3^ “If he 
is without means and simpty unfortunate, wh}’ torment 
him ? If he is a scoundrel, j'ou will never get anything. 
Your known severity will make 3’ou seem uncompro- 
mising ; it will be impossible to negotiate with you ; 
consequent!}^ you are the one who will get paid as long 
as there is anything to pay with.” 

Cesar came to all appointments at the expected hour ; 
but if he were kept waiting, he left ten minutes later 
with an infiexibility which nothing ever changed. Thus 
his punctuality compelled all persons who had dealings 
with him to be punctual themselves. 

The dress adopted by the worthy man was in keeping 
with his manners and his countenance. No power 
could have made him give up the white muslin cravatSf 


62 


CSsar Birotteau, 


with ends embroidered by his wife or daughter, which 
hung down beneath his chin. His waistcoat of white 
pique, squarely buttoned, came down low over his stom- 
ach, which was rather protuberant, for he was somewhat 
fat. He wore blue trousers, black silk stockings, and 
shoes with ribbon ties, which were often unfastened. 
His surtout coat, olive-green and always too large, and 
his broad-brimmed hat gave him the air of a Quaker. 
When he dressed for the Sunday evening festivities he 
put on silk breeches, shoes with gold buckles, and the 
inevitable square waistcoat, whose front edges opened 
sufficiently to show a pleated shirt-frill. His coat, of 
maroon cloth, had wide flaps and long skirts. Up to 
the year 1819 he kept up the habit of wearing two watch- 
chains, which hung down in parallel lines ; but he only 
put on the second when he dressed for the evening. 

Such was C^sar Birotteau ; a worthy man, to whom 
the fates presiding at the birth of men had denied the 
faculty of judging politics and life in their entirety, and 
of rising above the social level of the middle classes ; 
who followed ignorantly the track of routine, whose 
opinions were all imposed upon him from the outside 
and applied by him without examination. Blind but 
good, not spiritual but deeply religious, he had a pure 
heart. In that heart there shone one love, the light and 
strength of his life ; for his desire to rise in life, and the 
limited knowledge he had gained of the world, both came 
from his affection for his wife and for his daughter 

As for Madame C4sar, then thirty-seven years old, 
she bore so close a resemblance to the Venus of Milo 
that all who knew her recognized the likeness when the 


CSsar Birotteau, 


63 


Due de Riviere sent the beautiful statue to Paris. In a 
few months sorrows were to dim with j’ellowing tints that 
dazzling fairness, to hollow and blacken the bluish cir- 
cle round the lovely greenish-gray eyes so cruelly that 
she then wore the look of an old Madonna ; for amid 
the coming ruin she retained her gentle sincerity, her 
pure though saddened glance ; and no one ever thought 
her less than a beautiful woman, whose bearing was 
virtuous and full of dignity. At the ball now planned 
by Cesar she was to shine with a last lustre of beauty, 
remarked upon at the time and long remembered. 

Every life has its climax, — a period when causes are 
at work, and are in exact relation to results. This mid- 
da}" of life, when living forces find their equilibrium and 
put forth their productive powers with full effect, is 
common not only to organized beings but to cities, 
nations, ideas, institutions, commerce, and commercial 
enterprises, all of which, like noble races and dynasties, 
are born and rise and fall. From whence comes the 
vigor with which this law of growth and decay applies 
itself to all organized things in this lower world? 
Death itself, in times of scourge, has periods when it 
advances, slackens, sinks back, and slumbers. Our 
globe is perhaps only a rocket a little more continuing 
than the rest. History, recording the causes of the rise 
and fall of all things here below, could enlighten man 
as to the moment when he might arrest the play of all 
his faculties ; but neither the conquerors, nor the actors, 
nor the women, nor the writers in the great drama will 
listen to the salutary voice. 

Cesar Birotteau, who might with reason think himsell 
at the apogee of his fortunes, used this crucial pause 


64 


CSaar Birotteau, 


as the point of a new departure. He did not know, 
moreover neither nations nor kings have attempted to 
make known in characters ineffaceable, the cause of 
the vast overthrows with which history teems, and of 
which so many ro^^al and commercial houses offer signal 
examples. Wh^^ are there no modern pyramids to re- 
call ceaselessly the one principle which dominates the 
common-weal of nations and of individual life ? When 
the effect •produced is no longer in direct relation nor 
in equal proportion to the cause, disorganization has 
begun. And yet such monuments stand ever^’where ; 
it is tradition and the stones of the earth which tell us 
of the past, which set a seal upon the caprices of in- 
domitable destiny, whose hand wipes out our dreams, 
and shows us that all great events are summed up in 
one idea. Troy and Napoleon are but poems. May 
this present history be the poem of middle-class vicissi- 
tudes, to which no voice has given utterance because 
they have seemed poor in dignity, enormous as they are 
in volume. It is not one man with whom we are now 
to deal, but a whole people, or world, of sorrows. 


CS%ar Birotteau. 


65 


III 

Cesar’s last thought as he fell asleep was a fear that 
his wife would make peremptorj" objections in the 
morning, and he ordered himself to get up very early 
and escape them. At the dawn of day he slipped out 
noiselessly, leaving his wife in bed, dressed quickl}^ 
and went down to the shop just as the boy was taking 
down the numbered shutters. Birotteau, finding him- 
self alone, the clerks not having appeared, went to the 
doorway to see how the bo}", named Raguet, did his 
work, — for Birotteau knew all about it from experience. 
In spite of the sharp air the weather was beautiful. 

“ Popinot, get your hat, put on j’our shoes, and call 
Monsieur Celestin ; you and I will go and have a talk 
in the Tuileries,” he said, when he saw Anselme come 
down. 

Popinot, the admirable antipodes of du Tillet, appren- 
ticed to C^sar b}^ one of those lucky chances which lead 
us to believe in a Sub-Providence, plays so great a part 
in this history that it becomes absolutel}" necessary to 
sketch his profile here. Madame Ragon was a Popi- 
not. She had two brothers. One, the 3"oungest of the 
family, was at this time a judge in the Lower courts 
of the Seine, — courts which take cognizance of all civil 
contests involving sums above a certain amount. The 
eldest, who was in the wholesale wool-trade, lost his 

6 


CSmr Birotteau, 


property and died, leaving to the care of Madame 
Ragon and his brother an only son, who had lost his 
mother at his birth. To give him a trade, Madame 
Ragon placed her nephew at ‘‘The Queen of Roses,’* 
hoping he might some day succeed Birotteau. Anselme 
Popinot was a little fellow and club-footed, — an infirm- 
ity bestowed by fate on Lord Byron, Walter Scott, and 
Monsieur de Talleyrand, that others so afflicted might 
suffer no discouragement. He had the brilliant skin, 
with frequent blotches, which belongs to persons with 
red hair ; but his clear brow, his eyes the color of a 
grey-veined agate, his pleasant mouth, his fair com- 
plexion, the charm of his modest youth and the shyness 
which grew out of his deformity, all inspired feelings 
of protection in those who knew him : we love the 
weak, and Popinot was loved. Little Popinot — ever}"- 
body called him so — belonged to a family essentially re- 
ligious, whose virtues were intelligent, and whose lives 
were simple and full of noble actions. The lad himself, 
brought up by his uncle the judge, presented a union 
of qualities which are the beauty of youth ; good and 
affectionate, a little shame-faced though full of eagerness, 
gentle as a lamb but energetic in his work, devoted and 
sober, he was endowed with the virtues of a Christian 
in the early ages of the Church. 

When he heard of a walk in the Tuileries, — certainly 
the most eccentric proposal that his august master 
could have made to him at that hour of the day, — Po- 
pinot felt sure that he must intend to speak to him 
about setting up in business. He thought suddenly of 
Cesarine, the true queen of roses, the living sign 
of the house, whom he had loved from the day when 


CSsar Birotteau, 


67 


he was taken into Birotteau’s employ, two months be- 
fore the advent of du Tillet. As he went upstairs he 
was forced to pause; his heart swelled, his arteries 
throbbed violently. However, he soon came down 
again, followed by Celestin, the head-clerk. Anselme 
and his master turned without a word in the direction 
of the Tuileries. 

Popinot was twenty-one years old. Birotteau him- 
self had married at that age. Anselme therefore could 
see no hindrance to his marriage with Cesarine, though 
the wealth of the perfumer arid the beauty of the 
daughter were immense obstacles in the path of his am- 
bitious desires : but love gets onward by leaps of hope, 
and the more absurd they are the greater faith it has 
in them ; the farther oif was the mistress of Anselme’s 
heart, the more ardent became his desires. Happy the 
youth who in those levelling daj’s when all hats looked 
alike, had contrived to create a sense of distance be- 
tween the daughter of a perfumer and himself, the scion 
of an old Parisian family ! In spite of all his doubts 
and fears he was happy : did he not dine every day 
beside Cesarine ? So, while attending to the business 
of the house, he threw a zeal and energy into his work 
which deprived it of all hardship ; doing it for the sake 
of Cesarine, nothing tired him. Love, in a youth of 
twent}’, feeds on devotion. 

“He is a true merchant; he will succeed,” C^sar 
would say to Madame Ragon, as he praised Anselme’s 
activity in preparing the work at the factory, or boasted 
of his readiness in learning the niceties of the trade, 
or recalled his arduous labors when shipments had to 
be made, and when, with his sleeves rolled up and his 


68 


CSsar Birotteau. 


arms bare, the lame lad packed and nailed up, him- 
self alone, more cases than all the other clerks put 
together. 

The well-known and avowed intentions of Alexandre 
Crottat, head-clerk to Eoguin, and the wealth of his 
father, a rich farmer of Brie, were certainly obstacles 
in the lad’s way ; but even these were not the hardest 
to conquer. Popinot buried in the depths of his heart 
a sad secret, which widened the distance between 
Cesarine and himself. The propert}" of the Ragons, 
on which he might have counted, was involved, and 
the orphan lad had the satisfaction of enabling them 
to live by making over to them his meagre salary. Yet 
with all these drawbacks he believed in success ! He 
had sometimes caught a glance of dignified approval 
from Cesarine ; in the depths of her blue eyes he had 
dared to read a secret thought full of caressing hopes. 
He now walked beside Cesar, heaving with these ideas, 
trembling, silent, agitated, as any young lad might 
well have been by such an occurrence in the burgeoning 
time of youth. 

“Popinot,” said the worthy man, “is your aunt 
well ? ” 

“Yes, monsieur.” 

“ She has seemed rather anxious lately. Does any- 
thing trouble her? Listen, my boy; you must not be 
too reticent with me. I am half one of the family. I 
have known your uncle Ragon thirty-five years. I 
went to him in hob-nailed shoes, just as I came from 
my village. That place is called Les Tresorieres, but 
I can tell you that all my worldly goods were one louis, 
given me by my godmother the late Marquise d’Uxelles, 


Cisar Birotteau. 


69 


a relation of Monsieur le Due and Madame la Duchesse 
de Lenoncourt, who are now customers of ours. I pray 
every Sunday for her and for all her family ; I send 
yearly to her niece in Touraine, Madame de Mortsauf, 
all her perfumery. I get a good deal of custom through 
them; there’s Monsieur de Vandenesse who spends 
twelve hundred francs a year with us. If I were not 
grateful out of good feeling, I ought to he so out of 
policy ; but as for 3^011 Anselme, I wish 3’ou well for 
3’our own sake, and without an^" other thought.” 

“ Ah, monsieur ! if 3^ou will allow me to say so, j’ou 
have got a head of gold.” 

“No, no, my bojs that’s not it. I don’t say that 
my head-piece is n’t as good as another’s ; but the thing 
is, I ’ve been honest, — tenaciously! I ’ve kept ro good 
conduct ; I never loved an3" woman except my wife. 
Love is a famous vehicle^ — happy word used by 
Monsieur Villele in the tribune 3’esterday.” 

“ Love ! ” exclaimed Popinot. “ Oh, monsieur ! can 
it be — ” 

“Bless me! there’s Pere Roguin, on foot at this 
hour, at the top of the Place Louis XV. I wonder 
what he is doing there ! ” thought Cesar, forgetting all 
about Anselme and the oil of nuts. 

The suspicions of his wife came back to his mind ; 
and instead of turning in to the Tuileries Gardens, 
Birotteau walked on to meet the notary. Anselme 
followed his master at a distance, without being able 
to define the reason why he suddenly felt an interest in 
a matter so apparentl3' unimportant, and full of joy 
at the encouragement he derived from Cesar’s mention 
of the hob-nailed shoes, the one louis, and love. 


70 


CSsar Birotteau* 


In times gone by, Roguin — a large stout man, with 
a pimpled face, a very bald forehead, and black hair — 
had not been wanting in a certain force of character and 
countenance. He had once been 3’oung and daring; 
beginning as a mere clerk, he had risen to be a notary ; 
but at this period his face showed, to the eyes of a 
keen observer, certain haggard lines, and an expression 
of weariness in the pursuit of pleasure. When a man 
plunges into the mire of excesses it is seldom that his 
face shows no trace of it. In the present instance the 
lines of the wrinkles and the heat of the complexion 
were markedly" ignoble. Instead of the pure glow which 
suffuses the tissues of a virtuous man and stamps them, 
as it were, with the flower of health, the impurities of 
his blood could be seen to master the soundness of his 
bod3^ His nose was ignominiousl}" shortened like 
those of men in whom scrofulous humors, attacking 
that organ, produce a secret inflrmit}' which a virtuous 
queen of France innocentl}" believed to be a misfortune 
common to the whole human race, for she had never 
approached any man but the king sufficient!}" near to 
become aware of her blunder. Roguin hoped to con- 
ceal this misfortune by the excessive use of snuff, but 
he only increased the trouble which was the principal 
cause of his disasters. 

Is it not a too-prolonged social flattery to paint men 
forever under false colors, and never to reveal the 
actual causes which underlie their vicissitudes, caused 
as they so often are by maladies ? Physical evil, con- 
sidered under the aspect of its moral ravages, examined 
as to its influence upon the mechanism of life, has been 
perhaps too much neglected by the historians of the 


CSsar Birotteau, 71 

social kingdom. Madame C^sar had guessed the secret 
of Roguin’s household. 

From the night of her marriage, the channing and 
only daughter of the banker Chevrel conceived for 
the unhappy notary an insurmountable antipathy, and 
wished to apply at once for a divorce. But Roguin, 
happy in obtaining a rich wife with five hundred thou- 
sand francs of her own, to say nothing of expectations, 
entreated her not to institute an action for divorce, 
promising to leave her free, and to accept all the con- 
sequences of such an agreement. Madame Roguin thus 
became sovereign mistress of the situation, and treated 
her husband as a courtesan treats an elderly lover. 
Roguin soon found his wife too expensive, and like 
other Parisian husbands he set up a private establish- 
ment of his own, keeping the cost, in the first instance, 
within the limits of moderate expenditure. In the be- 
ginning he encountered, at no great expense, grisettes 
who were glad of his protection ; but for the past three 
years he had fallen a prej’^ to one of those unconquer- 
able passions which sometimes invade the whole being 
of a man between fifty and sixty years of age. It was 
roused by a magnificent creature known as la helle 
Sollandaise in the annals of prostitution, for into that 
gulf she was to fall back and become a noted personage 
through her death. She was originally brought from 
Bruges by a client of Roguin, who soon after left Paris 
in consequence of political events, presenting her to 
the notary" in 1815. Roguin bought a house for her in 
the Champs-^^l3"s4es, furnished it handsomely", and in 
trying to satisfy her costly caprices had gradually eaten 
up his whole fortune. 


72 


CSsar Birotteau. 


The gloomy look on the notary’s face, which he hast- 
ened to lay aside when he saw Birotteau, grew out 
of certain mj^sterious circumstances which were at the 
bottom of the secret fortune so rapidly acquired by du 
Tibet. The scheme originally planned by that adven- 
turer had changed on the first Sunday when he saw, at 
Birotteau’s house, the relations existing between Mon- 
sieur and Madame Roguin. He had come there not so 
much to seduce Madame Cesar as to obtain the offer of 
her daughter’s hand b}^ way of compensation for frus- 
trated hopes, and he found little difficulty in renouncing 
his purpose when he discovered that Cesar, whom he 
supposed to be rich, was in point of fact comparatively 
poor. He set a watch on the notary, wormed himself 
into his confidence, was presented to la belle Hollan- 
daise, made a study of their relation to each other, and 
soon found that she threatened to renounce her lover 
if he limited her luxuries. La belle Hollandaise was 
one of those mad-cap women who care nothing as to 
where the money comes from, or how it is obtained, 
and who are capable of giving a ball with the gold 
obtained by a parricide. She never thought of the 
morrow ; for her the future was after dinner, and the 
end of the month eternity, even if she had bills to pay. 
Du Tibet, delighted to have found such a lever, exacted 
from la belle Hollandaise a promise that she would love 
Roguin for thirty thousand francs a year instead of fifty 
thousand, — a service which infatuated old men seldom 
forget. 

One evening, after a supper where the wine flowed 
freely, Roguin unbosomed himself to du Tibet on the 
subject of his financial difiSculties. His own estate was 


CSsar Birotteau, 


73 


tied up and legally settled on his wife, and he had been 
led by his fatal passion to take from the funds intrusted 
to him by his clients a sum which was already more 
than half their amount. When the whole were gone, 
the unfortunate man intended to blow out his brains, 
hoping to mitigate the disgrace of his conduct by mak- 
ing a demand upon public pity. A fortune, rapid and 
sure, darted before du Tillet’s eyes like a flash of light- 
ning in a saturnalian night. He promptly reassured 
Roguin, and made him fire his pistols into the air. 

“ With such risks as yours,” he said, “ a man of 
your calibre should not behave like a fool and walk on 
tiptoe, but speculate — boldly.” 

He advised Roguin to take a large sum from the re- 
maining trust-moneys and give it to him, du Tillet, 
with permission to stake it bravely on some large oper- 
ation, either at the Bourse, or in one of the thousand 
enterprises of private speculation then about to be 
launched. Should he win, the}^ were to form a banking- 
house, where thej^ could turn to good account a portion 
of the deposits, while the profits could be used by Ro- 
guin for his pleasures. If luck went against them, 
Roguin was to get awa}' and live in foreign countries, 
and trust to his friend du Tillet, who would be faithful 
to him to the last sou. It was a rope thrown to a 
drowning man, and Roguin did not perceive that the 
perfumer’s clerk had flung it round his neck. 

Master of Roguin’s secret, du Tillet made use of it 
to establish his power over wife, mistress, and husband 
Madame Roguin, when told of a disaster she was far 
from suspecting, accepted du Tillet’s attentions, who 
about this time left his situation with Birotteau, confi' 


74 


CSsar Birotteau. 


dent of future success. He found no difficulty in per- 
suading the mistress to risk a certain sum of money as 
a provision against the necessity of resorting to prosti- 
tution if misfortunes overtook her. The wife, on the 
other hand, regulated her accounts, and gathered to- 
gether quite a little capital, which she gave to the man 
whom her husband confided in ; for b}" this time the 
notary had given a hundred thousand francs of the re- 
maining trust-money to his accomplice. Du Tibet’s 
relations to Madame Roguin then became such that 
her interest in him was transformed into affection 
and finall}" into a violent passion. Through his three 
sleeping-partners Ferdinand naturall}’ derived a profit ; 
but not content with that profit, he had the audacity, 
when gambling at the Bourse in their name, to make 
an agreement with a pretended adversary, a man of 
straw, from whom he received back for himself certain 
sums which he charged as losses to his clients. As 
soon as he had gained fifty thousand francs he was sure 
of fortune. He had the e^’e of an eagle to discern the 
phases through which France was then passing. He 
played low during the campaign of the allied armies, 
and high on the restoration of the Bourbons. Two 
months after the return of Louis XVIII., Madame Ro- 
guin was worth two hundred thousand francs, du Tibet 
three hundred thousand, and the notary had been able 
to get his accounts once more into order. 

La belle Hobandaise wasted her share of the profits ; 
for she was secretly a prey to an infamous scoundrel 
named Maxime de Traibes, a former page of the Em- 
peror. Du Tibet discovered the real name of this wo- 
man in drawing out a deed. She was Sarah Gobseck. 


Cesar Biroiteau. 


75 


Struck by the coincidence of the name with that of a 
well-known usurer, he went to the old money-lender 
(that providence of young men of family) to find out 
how far he would back the credit of his relation. The 
Brutus of usurers was implacable towards his great- 
niece, but du Tillet himself pleased him by posing as 
Sarah’s banker, and having funds to invest. The Nor- 
man nature and the rapacious nature suited each other. 
Gobseck happened to want a clever young man to ex- 
amine into an affair in a foreign country. It chanced 
that an auditor of the Council of State, overtaken bv 
the return of the Bourbons and anxious to stand well at 
court, had gone to Germany and bought up all the debts 
contracted b}’ the princes during the emigration. He 
now offered the profits of the affair, which to him was 
merely political, to any one who would reimburse him. 
Gobseck would pa^" no mone}" down, unless in propor- 
tion to the redemption of the debts, and insisted on a 
careful examination of the affair. Usurers never trust 
any one ; thej' demand vouchers. With them the bird in 
the hand is everything ; icy when the}’ have no need of 
a man, the}’ are wheedling and inclined to be gracious 
when they can make him useful. 

Du Tillet knew the enormous underground part 
played in the world by such men as Werbrust and 
Gigonnet, commercial money-lenders in the Rues 
Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin ; by Palma, banker in 
the Faubourg Poissonniere, — all of whom were closely 
connected with Gobseck. He accordingly offered a 
cash security, and obtained an interest in the affair, 
on condition that these gentlemen would use in their 
commercial loans certain moneys he should place in 


76 


CSsar Birotteau. 


their hands. By this means he strengthened himself 
with a solid support on all sides. 

Du Tillet accompanied Monsieur Clement Chardin 
des Lupeaulx to Germany during the Hundred Days, 
and came back at the second Restoration, having done 
more to increase his means of making a fortune than 
augmented the fortune itself. He was now in the secret 
councils of the sharpest speculators in Paris ; he had 
secured the friendship of the man with whom he had 
examined into the affair of the debts, and that clever 
juggler had laid bare to him the secrets of legal and po- 
litical science. Du Tillet possessed one of those minds 
which understand at half a word, and he completed his 
education during his travels in German}^ On his 
return he found Madame Roguin faithful to him. As 
to the notar}", he longed for Ferdinand with as much 
impatience as his wife did, for la belle Hollandaise had 
once more ruined him. Du Tillet questioned the wo- 
man, but could find no outlay equal to the sum dissi- 
pated. It was then that he discovered the secret which 
Sarah had carefully concealed from him, — her mad pas- 
sion for Maxime de Trailles, whose earliest steps in a 
career of vice showed him for what he was, one of those 
good-for-nothing members of the body politic who seem 
the necessary evil of all good government, and whose 
love of gambling renders them insatiable. On making 
this discovery, du Tillet at once saw the reason of 
Gobseck’s insensibility to the claims of his niece. 

Under these circumstances du Tillet the banker (for 
Ferdinand was now a banker) advised Roguin to lay 
up something against a rainy day, by persuading his 
clients to invest in some enterprise which might enable 


CSsar Birotteau, 


77 


him to put by for himself large sums of money, in case 
he were forced to go into bankruptcy through the affairs 
of the bank. After many ups and downs, which were 
profitable to none but Madame Roguin and du Tillet, 
Roguin heard the fatal hour of his insolvency and final 
ruin strike. His misery was then worked upon bj" his 
faithful friend. Ferdinand invented the speculation in 
lands about the Madeleine. The hundred thousand 
francs belonging to Cesar Birotteau, which were in the 
hands of the notar}", were made over to du Tillet ; for 
the latter, whose object was to ruin the perfumer, had 
made Roguin understand that he would run less risk 
if he got his nearest friends into the net. “ A friend,’^ 
he said, “ is more considerate, even if angry.” 

Few people realize to-da}' how little value the lands 
about the Madeleine had at the period of which we write ; 
but at that time they were likely to be sold even below 
their then value, because of the difficulty of finding pur- 
chasers willing to wait for the profits of the enterprise. 
Now, du Tillet’s aim was to seize the profits speedily 
without the losses of a protracted speculation. In other 
words, his plan was to strangle the speculation and get 
hold of it as a dead thing, which he might galvanize 
back to life when it suited him. In such a scheme the 
Gobsecks, Palmas, and Werbrusts would have been 
ready to lend a hand, but du Tillet was not yet suffi- 
ciently intimate with them to ask their aid ; besides, he 
wanted to hide his own hand in conducting the affair, 
that he might get the profits of his theft without the 
shame of it. He felt the necessity of having under his 
thumb one of those living lay-figures called in commer- 
cial language a “ man of straw.” His former tool at the 


78 


CSsar Birotteau, 


Bourse struck him as a suitable person for the post; 
he accordingly trenched upon Divine right, and created 
a man. Out of a former commercial traveller, who was 
without means or capacity of any kind, except that 
of talking indefinitely on all subjects and saying noth- 
ing, who was without a farthing or a chance to make 
one,* — able, nevertheless, to understand a part and act 
it without compromising the pla}" or the actors in it, 
and possessed of a rare sort of honor, that of keeping 
a secret and letting himself be dishonored to screen his 
employers, — out of such a being du Tillet now made 
a banker, who set on foot and directed vast enterprises ; 
the head, namely, of the house of Claparon. 

The fate of Charles Claparon would be, if du Tillet’s 
scheme ended in bankruptcy, a swift deliverance to the 
tender mercies of Jews and Pharisees ; and he well 
knew it. But to a poor devil who was despondently^ 
roaming the boulevard with a future of forty^ sous in his 
pocket when his old comrade du Tillet chanced to meet 
him, the little gains that he was to get out of the affair 
seemed an Eldorado. His friendship, his devotion, 
to du Tillet, increased by unreflecting gratitude and 
stimulated by the wants of a libertine and vagabond 
life, led him to say amen to everything. Having sold 
his honor, he saw it risked with so much caution that 
he ended by attaching himself to his old comrade as 
a dog to his master. Claparon was an ugly poodle, 
but as ready to jump as Curtius. In the present affair 
he was to represent half the purchasers of the land, 
while Cesar Birotteau represented the other half. The 
notes which Claparon was to receive from Birotteau 
were to be discounted by one of the usurers whose name 


CSsar Birotteau* 


79 


du Tillet was authorized to use, and this would send 
Cesar headlong into bankruptcy so soon as Roguin had 
drawn from him his last funds. The assignees of the 
failure would, as du Tillet felt certain, follow his cue; 
and he, alread}’ possessed of the property paid over by 
the perfumer and his associates, could sell the lands 
at auction and bu}’ them in at half their value with the 
funds of Roguin and the assets of the failure. The 
notary went into this scheme believing that he should 
enrich himself bj’ the spoliation of Birotteau and his 
copartners ; but the man in whose power he had placed 
himself intended to take, and eventually did take, the 
lion’s share. Roguin, unable to sue du Tillet in any 
of the courts, was glad of the bone flung to him, month 
b}^ month, in the recesses of Switzerland, where he 
found nymphs at a reduction. Circumstances, actual 
facts, and not the imagination of a tragic author 
inventing a catastrophe, gave birth to this horrible 
scheme. Hatred without a thirst for vengeance is like 
a seed falling on stony ground ; but vengeance vowed 
to a Cesar by a du Tillet is a natural movement of 
the soul. If it were not, then we must deny the war- 
fare between the angels of light and the spirits of 
darkness. 

Du Tillet could not very easily assassinate the man 
who knew him to be guilty of a petty theft, but he could 
fling him into the mire and annihilate him so com- 
pletely that his word and testimony would count for 
nothing. For a long time revenge had germinated in 
his heart without budding ; for the men who hate most 
are usually those who have little time in Paris to make 
plans ; life is too fast, too full, too much at the mercy 


80 


CSsar Birotteau. 


of unexpected events. But such perpetual changes, 
though the}" hinder premeditation, nevertheless offer 
opportunity to thoughts lurking in the depths of a 
purpose which is strong enough to lie in wait for their 
tidal chances. AVhen Eoguin first confided his troubles 
to du Tillet, the latter had vaguely foreseen the possi- 
bility of destroying Cesar, and he was not mistaken. 
Forced at last to give up his mistress, the notary drank 
the dregs of his philter from a broken chalice. He 
went every day to the Champs Elysees returning home 
early in the morning. The suspicions of Madame 
Cesar were justified. 

From the moment when a man consents to play the 
part which du Tillet had allotted to Roguin, he devel- 
ops the talents of a comedian ; he has the eye of a lynx 
and the penetration of a seer ; he magnetizes his dupe. 
The notary had seen Birotteau some time before Birot- 
teau had caught sight of him ; when the perfumer did 
see him, Roguin held out his hand before they met. 

“ I have just been to make the will of a great per- 
sonage who has only eight days to live,” he said, with 
an easy manner. “ They have treated me like a coun- 
try doctor, — fetched me in a carriage, and let me walk 
home on foot.” 

These words chased away the slight shade of sus- 
picion which clouded the face of the perfumer, and 
which Roguin had been quick to perceive. The notary 
Vras careful not to be the first to mention the land 
speculation ; his part was to deal the last blow. 

“ After wills come marriage contracts,” said Birotteau. 
“ Such is life. Apropos, when do we marry the Made- 


CSsar Birotteau, 


81 


leine? Hey! hey! papa Roguin,” he added, tapping 
the notary on the stomach. 

Among men the most chaste of bourgeois have the 
ambition to appear rakish. 

“Well, if it is not to-day,” said the notary with 
a diplomatic air, “ then never. We are afraid that the 
affair may get wind. I am much urged bj^ two of my 
wealthiest clients, who want a share in the speculation. 
There it is, to take or leave. This morning I shall 
draw the deeds. You have till one o’clock to make up 
your mind. Adieu ; I am just on my way to read over 
the rough draught which Xandrot has been making out 
during the night. 

“ Well, my mind is made up. I pass my word,” 
said Birotteau, running after the notary and seizing his 
hand. “ Take the hundred thousand francs which were 
laid by for my daughter’s portion.” 

“Very good,” said Roguin, leaving him. 

For a moment, as Birotteau turned to rejoin little 
Popinot, he felt a fierce heat in his entrails, the muscles 
of his stomach contracted, his ears buzzed. 

“What is the matter, monsieur?” asked the clerk, 
when he saw his master’s pale face. 

“ Ah, my lad ! I have just with one word decided on 
a great undertaking ; no man is master of himself at 
such a moment. You are a party to it. In fact, I 
brought 5^ou here that we might talk of it at our ease ; 
no one can overhear us. Your aunt is in trouble ; how 
did she lose her mone}"? Tell me.” 

“ Monsieur, my uncle and aunt put all their property 
into the hands of Monsieur de Nucingen, and they were 
forced to accept as security certain shares in the mines 

a 


82 


CSsar Birotteau, 


at Woi-tschin, which as 5^et no dividends ; and it 
is hard at their age to live on hope.” 

“ How do they live, then?” 

“They do me the great pleasure of accepting my 
salary.” 

“Right, right, Anselme ! ” said the perfumer, as a 
tear rolled down his cheek. “You are worthy of the 
regard I feel for you. You are about to receive a great 
recompense for your fidelity to my interests.” 

As he said these words the worthy man swelled in 
his own eyes as much as he did in those of Popinot, and 
he uttered them with a plebeian and naive emphasis 
which was the genuine expression of his counterfeit 
superiority. 

“Ah, monsieur ! have you guessed my love for — ” 

“ For whom?” asked his master. 

“ For Mademoiselle Cesarine.” 

“Ah, boy, 3’ou are bold indeed!” exclaimed ^feirot- 
teau. “ Keep j’our secret. I promise to forget it. 
You leave my house to-morrow. I am not angr}’ with 
you ; in 3’our place the devil ! the devil ! — I should 
have done the same. She is so lovely ! ” 

“Oh, monsieur I ” said the clerk, who felt his shirt 
getting wet with perspiration. 

“My bo3", this matter is not one to be settled in a 
day. Cesarine is her own mistress, and her mother has 
fixed ideas. Control j^ourself, wipe 3’our eyes, hold 3’our 
heart in hand, and don’t let us talk an3" more about it. 
I should not blush to have 3'Ou for m3’ son-in-law. The 
nephew of Monsieur Popinot, a judge of the civil courts, 
nephew of the Ragons, 3^ou have the right to make your 
way as* well as anybody,* but there are buts and ifs and 


C6mr Birotteau. 


83 


hows and whys. What a devil of a dog j’ou have let 
loose upon me, in the midst of a business conversation ! 
Here, sit down on that chair, and let the lover give place 
to the clerk. Popinot, are you a loyal man ? ” he said, 
looking fixedly at the youth. “ Do you feel within you 
the nerve to struggle with something stronger than 
yourself, and fight hand to hand?’’ 

“ Yes, monsieur.” 

“ To maintain a long and dangerous battle?” 

“ What for?” 

“ To destroy Macassar Oil! ” said Birotteau, rising 
on his toes like a hero in Plutarch. “ Let us not mis- 
take; the enemy is strong, well intrenched, formidable I 
Macassar Oil has been vigorously launched. The con- 
ception was strong. The square bottles were original ; 
I have thought of making ours triangular. Yet on the 
whole I prefer, after ripe reflection, smaller bottles of 
thin glass, incased in wicker ; they would have a mj’s- 
terious look, and customers like things which puzzle 
them.” 

“ The}^ would be expensive,” said Popinot. “We 
must get things out as cheap as we can, so as to make 
a good reduction at wholesale.” 

“ Good, my lad! That’s the right principle. But 
now, think of it. Macassar Oil will defend itself ; it 
is specious ; the name is seductive. It is oflered as a 
foreign importation ; and we have the ill-luck to belong 
to our own country. Come, Popinot, have you the 
courage to kill Macassar? Then begin the fight in 
foreign lands. It seems that Macassar is really in the 
Indies. Now, is n’t it much better to supply a French 
product to the Indians than to send them back what 


84 


Cizar Birotteau. 


they are supposed to send us? Make the venture. 
Begin the fight in India, in foreign countries, in the 
departments. Macassar Oil has been thoroughly adver- 
tised ; we must not underrate its power, it has been 
pushed everywhere, the public knows it.” 

“I’ll kill it ! ” cried Popinot, with fire in his eyes. 

“What with?” said Birotteau. “That’s the way 
with ardent young people. Listen till I’ve done.” 

Anselme fell into position like a soldier presenting 
arms to a marshal of France. 

“Popinot, I have invented an oil to stimulate the 
growth of hair, to titillate the scalp, to revive the color 
of male and female tresses. This cosmetic will not be 
less successful than my Paste or my Lotion. But I 
don’t intend to work it myself. I think of retiring from 
business. It is you, my boy, who are to launch my Oil 
Comagene, — from the latin word coma, which signi- 
fies ‘ hair,’ as Monsieur Alibert, the King’s ph3’sician, 
says. The word is found in the tragedy of Berenice, 
where Racine introduces a king of Comagene, lover of 
the queen so celebrated for the beauty of her hair ; the 
king — no doubt as a delicate flattery — gave the name 
to his country. What wit and intellect there is in 
genius ! it condescends to the minutest details.” 

Little Popinot kept his countenance as he listened to 
this absurd flourish, evidently said for his benefit as 
an educated 3’oung man. 

“Anselme, I have cast my eyes upon you as the 
one to found a commercial house in the high-class 
druggist line. Rue des Lombards. I will be your 
secret partner, and supply the funds to start with. 
After the Oil Comagene, we will try an essence of 


CSsar Birotteau. 


85 


vanilla and the spirit of peppermint. We’ll tackle 
the drug-trade by revolutionizing it, by selling its 
products concentrated instead of selling them raw. 
Ambitious 3’oung man, are you satisfied?” 

Anselme could not answer, his heart was full; but 
his ej^es, filled with tears, answered for him. The 
offer seemed prompted by indulgent fatherhood, saying 
to him : “ Deserve Cesarine by becoming rich and 
respected.” 

“ Monsieur,” he answered at last, “I will succeed ! ” 

“That’s what I said at your age,” cried the per- 
fumer; “that was my motto. If you don’t win my 
daughter, at least 3*ou will win 3"our fortune. Eh, 
bo3" ! what is it ? ” 

“Let me hope that in acquiring the one I may obtain 
the other.” 

“ I can’t prevent you from hoping, my friend,” said 
Birotteau, touched by Anselme’s tone. 

“Well, then, monsieur, can I begin to-da3^ to look 
for a shop, so as to start at once?” 

“Yes, m3" son. To-morrow we will shut ourselves 
up in the workshop, 3’ou and I. Before 3"ou go to the 
Rue des Lombards, call at Livingston’s and ask if my 
h3"draulic press will be ready to use to-morrow morning. 
To-night we will go, about dinner-time, to the good and 
illustrious Monsieur Vauquelin and consult him. He 
has lately been emplo3"ed in stud3dng the composition 
of hair ; he has discovered the nature of the coloring 
matter and whence it comes ; also the structure of 
the hair itself. The secret is just there, Popinot, and 
3"ou shall know it; all we have to do is to work it 
out cleverl3". Before you go to Livingston’s, just stop 


86 


CSsar Birotteau, 


at Fieri Berard’s. My lad, the disinterested kindness 
of Monsieur Vauquelin is one of the sorrows of my 
life. I cannot make him accept any return. Happily, 
I found out from Chiffreville that he wished for the 
Dresden Madonna, engraved by a man named Muller. 
After two j^ears correspondence with Germany, Berard 
has at last found one on Chinese paper before lettering. 
It cost fifteen hundred francs, my boy. To-day, my 
benefactor will see it in his antechamber when he bows 
us out ; it is to be all framed, and I want you to see 
about it. We — that is, my wife and I — shall thus 
recall ourselves to his mind ; as for gratitude, we have 
pra3’ed to God for him daily for sixteen ^^ears. I can 
never forget him ; but yon see, Popinot, men buried in 
the depths of science do forget everything, — wives, 
friends, and those they have benefited. As for us plain 
people, our lack of mind keeps our hearts warm at any 
rate. That ’s the consolation for not being a great man. 
Look at those gentlemen of the Institute, — all brain ; 
3"Ou will never meet one of them in a church. Monsieur 
Vauquelin is tied to his study or his laboratory’ ; but 
I like to believe he thinks of God in analyzing the 
works of His hands. — Now, then, it is understood ; I 
give 3’ou the moneys and put you in possession of my 
secret; we will go shares, and there’s no need for any 
papers between us. Hurrah for success ! we ’ll act in 
concert. Off* with you, my boy’ ! As for me, I ’ve got 
my^ part to attend to. One minute, Popinot. I give 
a great ball three weeks hence ; get yourself a dress- 
coat, and look like a merchant already launched.” 

This last kindness touched Popinot so deeply^ that he 
caught Cesar’s big hand and kissed it ; the worthy soul 


C4sar Birotteau, 


87 


had flattered the lover by this confidence, and people 
in love are capable of anything. 

Poor boy ! ” thought Birotteau, as he watched him 
hurrying across the Tuileries. “ Suppose Cesarine 
should love him? But he is lame, and his hair is the 
color of a warming-pan. Young girls are queer ; still, 
I don’t think that Cesarine — And then her mother 
wants to see her the wife of a notary. Alexandre 
Crottat can make her rich ; wealth makes everything 
bearable, and there is no happiness that won’t give 
way under povert}". However, I am resolved to leave 
my daughter mistress of herself, even if it seems 
a folly.” 


88 


CS.mr Birotteau, 


IV. 

Birotteau’s neighbor was a small dealer in umbrellas, 
parasols, and canes, named Ca^Ton, — a man from Lan- 
guedoc, doing a poor business, whom Cesar had several 
times befriended. Cayron wished nothing better than 
to confine himself to the ground-floor and let the rich 
perfumer take the floor above it, thus diminishing his 
rent. 

“Well, neighbor,” said Birotteau familiarlj^, as he 
entered the man’s shop, “ my wife consents to the en- 
largement of our premises. If you like, we will go and 
see Monsieur Molineux at eleven o’clock.” 

“ My dear Monsieur Birotteau,” said the umbrella- 
man, “ I have not asked you any compensation for 
this cession ; but you are aware that a good merchant 
ought to make mone}' out of everything.” 

“What the devil!” cried Birotteau. “I’m not 
made of money. I don’t know that my architect can 
do the thing at all. He told me that before concluding 
m3" arrangements I must know whether the floors were 
on the same level. Then, supposing Monsieur Moli- 
neux does allow me to cut a door in the wall, is it 
a part3’-wall ? Moreover, I have to turn my staircase, 
and make a new landing, so as to get a passage-way 
on the same floor. All that costs money, and I don’t 
want to ruin myself.” 


CSsar Birotteau. 


89 


“ Oh, monsieur,” said the southerner. “Before you 
are ruined, the sun will have married the earth and 
they’ll have had children.” 

Birotteau stroked his chin, rose on the points of his 
toes, and fell back upon his heels. 

“Besides,” resumed Cayron “all I ask you to do 
is to cash these securities for me — ” 

And he held out sixteen notes amounting in all to 
five thousand francs. 

“ Ah ! ” said the perfumer turning them over. “ Small 
fry, two months, three months — ” 

“ Take them as low as six per cent,” said the 
umbrella- man humbly. 

“ Am I a usurer?” asked the perfumer reproachfully. 

“What can I do, monsieur? I went to 3’our old 
clerk, du Tillet, and he would not take them at any 
price. No doubt he wanted to find out how much I ’d 
be willing to lose on them.” 

“ I don’t know those signatures,” said the perfumer. 

“We have such queer names in canes and umbrellas ; 
they belong to the peddlers.” 

“Well, I won’t say that I will take all; but I’ll 
manage the short ones.” 

“For the want of a thousand francs — sure to be 
repaid in four months — don’t throw me into the hands 
of the blood-suckers who get the best of our profits ; 
do take all, monsieur ! I do so little in the way of dis- 
count that I have no credit ; that is what kills us little 
retailers.” 

“Well, I’ll cash 3^our notes ; Celestin will make out 
the account. Be ready at eleven, will jou? There’s 
my architect, Monsieur Grindot,” said the perfumer, 


90 


(JSsar Birotteav,. 


catching sight of the 3’oung man, with whom he had 
made an appointment at Monsieur de la Billardiere’s 
the night before. 

“ Contrary to the custom of men of talent j^ou are 
punctual, monsieur,” said Cesar, displaying his finest 
commercial graces. “ If punctuality, in the words of our 
king, — a man of wit as well as a statesman, — is the 
politeness of princes, it is also the wealth of merchants. 
Time, time, is gold, especiall}’^ to 3’ou artists. I permit 
myself to say to you that architecture is the union of 
all the arts. We will not enter through the shop,” he 
added, opening the private door of his house. 

Four years earlier Monsieur Grindot had carried off 
the grand prix in architecture, and had latel}^ returned 
from Rome where he had spent three years at the cost 
of the State. In Italy the j^oung man had dreamed of 
art ; in Paris he thought of fortune. Government alone 
can pay the needful millions to raise an architect to 
glory; it is therefore natural that every ambitious 
youth of that calling, returning from Rome and think- 
ing himself a Fontaine or a Percier, should bow before 
the administration. The liberal student became a roy- 
alist, and sought to win the favor of infiuential persons. 
When a grand prix man behaves thus, his comrades 
call him a trimmer. The young architect in question 
had two ways open to him, — either to serve the per- 
fumer well, or put him under contribution. Birotteau 
the deputy-mayor, Birotteau the future possessor of half 
the lands about the Madeleine, where he would sooner 
or later build up a fine neighborhood, was a man to 
keep on good terms with. Grindot accordingly resolved 
to sacrifice his immediate gains to his future interests. 


Cimr Birotteau. 


91 


He listened patiently to the plans, the repetitions, and 
the ideas of this worthy specimen of the bourgeois 
class, the constant butt of the witty shafts and ridicule 
of artists, and the object of their everlasting contempt, 
nodding his head as if to show the perfumer that he 
caught his ideas. When Cesar had thoroughly explained 
everything, the 3'oung man proceeded to sum up for him 
his own plan. 

“ You have now three front windows on the first 
floor, besides the window on the staircase which lights 
the landing ; to these four windows you mean to add 
two on the same level in the next house, by turning the 
staircase, so as to open a way from one house to the 
other on the street side.” 

“You have understood me perfectly,” said the 
perfumer, surprised. 

“To carry out your plan, you must light the new 
staircase from above, and manage to get a porter’s 
lodge beneath it.” 

“ Beneath it?’^ 

“ Yes, the space over which it rests — ” 

“ I understand, monsieur.” 

“As for your own appartement, give me carte- 
blanche to arrange and decorate it. I wish to make 
it worthy — ” 

“ Worthy ! You have said the word, monsieur.” 

“How much time do you give me to complete the 
work ? ” 

“ Twenty days.” 

“What sum do you mean to put in the workmen’s 
pockets ? ” asked Grindot. 

“ How much do you think it will cost? ” 


92 


CeBm Birotteau, 


“ An architect can estimate on a new building 
almost to a farthing,” answered the young man ; “ but 
as I don’t know how to deal with a bourgeois — ah ! 
excuse me, monsieur, the word slipped out — I must 
warn you that it is impossible to calculate the costs 
of tearing down and rebuilding. It will take at least 
eight days before I can give even an approximate idea 
of them. Trust 3’ourself to me : 3^ou shall have a 
charming staircase, lighted from above, with a pretty 
vestibule opening from the street, and in the space 
under the stairway" — ” 

“ Must that be used?’' 

‘‘Don’t be worried — I wiU find room for a little 
porter’s lodge. Your house shall be studied and re- 
modelled con amort. Yes, monsieur, I look to art 
and not to fortune. Above all things I do not want 
fame before I have earned it. To my mind, the best 
means of winning credit is not to pla^- into the hands 
of contractors, but to get at good effects cheaply.” 

“ With such ideas, young man,” said Birotteau in a 
patronizing tone, “3’ou will succeed.” 

“Therefore,” resumed Grindot, “ employ the masons, 
painters, locksmiths, carpenters, and upholsterers 3’our- 
self. I will simply look over their accounts. Pa3^ 
me only two thousand francs commission. It will be 
mone3' well laid out. Give me the premises to-morrow 
at twelve o’clock, and have 3^our workmen on the 
spot.” 

“How much will it cost, at a rough guess?” said 
Birotteau. 

“ From ten to twelve thousand francs,” said Grindot. 
“ That does not count the furniture ; of course 3'ou will 


C^mr Birotteau. 


93 


renew that. Give me the address of your cabinet- 
maker ; I shall have to arrange with him about the 
choice of colors, so as to have everything in keeping.” 

“ Monsieur Braschon, Rue Saint- Antoine, takes my 
orders,” said Birotteau, assuming a ducal air. 

The architect wrote down the address in one of 
those pretty note-books which invariably come from 
women. 

“Well,” said Birotteau, “I trust to 3’ou, monsieur; 
onty you must wait till the lease of the adjoining house 
is made over to me, and I get permission to cut through 
the wall.” 

“ Send me a note this evening,” said the architect; 
“it will take me all night to draw the plans — we 
would rather work for a bourgeois than for the King 
of Prussia, that is to say for ourselves. I will now 
take the dimensions, the pitch, the size of the win- 
dows, the pictures — ” 

“It must be finished on the appointed dajr,” said 
Birotteau. “If not, no pay.” 

“It shall be done,” said the architect. “The work- 
men must do without sleep ; we will use drying oil in 
the paint. But don’t let j^ourself be taken in by the 
contractors ; alwa^’s ask their price in advance, and 
have a written agreement.” 

“ Paris is the only place in the world where \^ou can 
wave a magic wand like that,” said Birotteau, with an 
Asiatic gesture worthj^ of the Arabian Nights. “You 
will do me the honor to come to my ball, monsieur? 
Men of talent are not all disdainful of commerce ; and 
you will meet a scientific man of the first order, Mon- 
sieur Vauquelin of the Institute ; also Monsieur de la 


94 


CSsar Birotteau, 


Billardiere, Monsieur le comte de Fontaine, Monsieui 
Lebas, judge and president of the Court of commerce, 
various magistrates. Monsieur le comte de Grand ville 
of the royal suite. Monsieur Popinot of the Lower 
court. Monsieur Camusot of the Court of commerce, 
and Monsieur Cardot, his father-in-law, and, perhaps. 
Monsieur le due de Lenoncourt, first gentleman of the 
bed-chamber to the king. I assemble my friends as 
much — to celebrate the emancipation of our territory 
— as to commemorate my — promotion to the order of 
the Legion of honor, ” — here Grindot made a curious 
gesture. “ Possibly I showed myself worthy of that — 
signal — and royal — favor, by my services on the 
bench, and by fighting for the Bourbons upon the steps 
of Saint-Roch on the 13th Vendemiaire, where I was 
wounded by Napoleon. These claims — ” 

Constance, in a morning gown, here came out of her 
daughter’s bedroom, where she had been dressing; her 
first glance cut short Cesar’s eloquence just as he was 
about to formulate in flowing phrase, though modestly, 
the tale of his merits. 

“ Tiens^ mimi^ this is Monsieur de Grindot, a young 
man distinguished in his own sphere of life, and the 
possessor of a great talent. Monsieur is the architect 
recommended to us by Monsieur de la Billardiere to 
superintend our little alterations.” 

The perfumer slipped behind his wife and made 
a sign to the architect to take notice of the word 
little^ putting his finger on his lips. Grindot took 
the cue. 

“Will it be very expensive?” said Constance to the 
architect. 


C^.8ar Birotteau* 95 

“ Oh, no, madame ; six thousand francs at a rough 
guess/' 

“ A rough guess ! ” exclaimed Madame Birotteau. 
“Monsieur, I entreat you, begin nothing without an 
estimate and the specifications signed. I know the 
ways of contractors : six thousand francs means twenty 
thousand. We are not in a position to commit such 
extravagance. I beg you, monsieur, — though of 
course my husband is master in his own house, — 
give him time to refiect.” 

“Madame, monsieur the deputy-mayor has ordered 
me to deliver the premises, all finished, in twenty days. 
If we delay, you will be likely to incur the expense 
without obtaining the looked-for result.” 

“There are expenses and expenses,” said the hand- 
some mistress of “ The Queen of Roses.” 

“ Ah ! madame, do you think an architect who seeks 
to put up public buildings finds it glorious to decorate 
a mere appartement? I have come down to such de- 
tails merely to oblige Monsieur de la Billardiere ; and 
if you fear — ” 

Here he made a movement to retreat. 

“ Well, well, monsieur,” said Constance re-entering 
her daughter’s room, where she threw her head on 
Cesarine’s shoulder. 

“Ah, my daughter!” she cried, “your father will 
ruin himself! He has engaged an architect with mus- 
tachios, who talks about public buildings ! He is 
going to pitch the house out of windows and build us 
a Louvre. C4sar is never idle about his follies ; he 
only spoke to me about it in the night, and he begins 
it in the morning 1 ” 


96 


CSsar Birotteau, 


“ Never mind, mamma ; let papa do as he likes. 
The good God has alwa3’s taken care of him,” said 
Cesarine, kissing her mother and sitting down to the 
piano, to let the architect know that the perfumer’s 
daughter was not ignorant of the fine arts. 

When Grindot came in to measure the bedroom he 
was surprised and taken aback at the beautj^ of Cesa- 
rine. Just out of her dressing-room and wearing a 
prett}" morning-gown, fresh and rosy as a j’oung girl 
is fresh and ros}" at eighteen, blond and slender, with 
blue eyes, Cesarine seemed to the 3'ouDg artist a picture 
of the elasticity, so rare in Paris, that fills and rounds 
the delicate cheek, and tints with the color adored of 
painters, the tracer3" of blue veins throbbing beneath 
the whiteness of her clear skin. Though she lived 
in the l3'mphatic atmosphere of a Parisian shop, where 
the air stagnates and the sun seldom shines, her habits 
gave her the same advantages which the open-air life 
of Rome gives to the Transteverine peasant- woman. 
Her hair, — which was abundant, and grew, like that 
of her father, in points upon her forehead, — was 
caught up in a twist which showed the lines of a 
well-set neck, and then rippled downward in curls 
that were scrupulously cared for, after the fashion of 
3^oung shop-women, whose desire to attract attention 
inspires the truly English minutiae of their toilet. The 
beauty of this 3'oung girl was not the beauty of an 
English lady, nor of a French duchess, but the round 
and glowing beauty of a Flemish Rubens. Cesarine 
had the turned-up nose of her father, but it was 
piquant through the delicacy of its modelling, — like 
those noses, essentially French, which have been sc 


C 6 mr Birotteau. 


97 


well reproduced b}" Largilliere. Her skin, of a firm 
full texture, bespoke the vitality of a virgin ; she had 
the fine brow of her mother, but it was clear with 
the serenity of a young girl who knows no care. Her 
liquid blue eyes, bathed in rich fluid, expressed the 
tender gi-a'ce of a glowing happiness. If that happi- 
ness took from her head the poetry which painters 
insist on giving to their pictures b}^ making them a 
shade too pensive, the vague physical languor of a 
young girl who has never left her mother’s side made 
up for it, and gave her a species of ideality. Not- 
withstanding the graceful lines of her figure, she was 
strongly built. Her feet betrayed the peasant origin 
of her father and her own defects of race, as did the 
redness of her hands, the sign of a thoroughly bourgeois 
life. Sooner or later she would grow stout. She had 
caught the sentiment of dress from the elegant 3’oung 
women who came to the shop, and had learned from 
them certain movements of the head, certain wa3’s 
of speaking and of moving ; and she could play the 
well-bred woman in a way that turned the heads of all 
the 3"oung men, especiall3" the clerks, in whose e3’es she 
appeared trul3^ distinguished. Popinot swore that he 
would have no other wife than Cesarine. The liquid 
brightness of that eye, which a look, or a tone of re- 
proach, might cause to overflow in tears, was all that 
kept him to a sense of masculine superiorit3\ The 
charming girl inspired love without leaving time to 
ask whether she had mind enough to make it durable. 
But of what value is the thing the3' call in Paris mind 
to a class whose principal element of happiness is virtue 
and good sense ? 


98 


CSsar Birotteau* 


In her moral qualities Cesarine was like her mother, 
somewhat bettered by the superfluities of education ; 
she loved music, drew the Madonna della Sedia in chalk, 
and read the works of Mmes. Cottin and Riccoboni, 
of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, F^nelon, and Racine. 
She was never seen behind the counter with her mother 
except for a few moments before sitting down to dinner, 
or on some special occasion when she replaced her. Her 
father and mother, like all persons who have risen from 
small beginnings, and who cultivate the ingratitude of 
their children b}' putting them above themselves, de- 
lighted in deifying Cesarine, who happily had the virtues 
of her class, and took no advantage of their weakness. 

Madame Birotteau followed the architect with an 
anxious and appealing e3'e, watching with terror, and 
pointing out to her daughter, the fantastic movements 
of the four-foot rule, that wand of architects and build- 
ers, with which Grindot was measuring. She saw in 
those mysterious wavings a conjuring spirit that au- 
gured evil ; she wished the walls were less high, the 
rooms less large, and dared not question the young 
man on the effects of his sorcery. 

“ Do not be afraid, madame, I shall carrj^ nothing 
oflT,” said the artist, laughing. 

Cesarine could not help smiling. 

“ Monsieur,” said Constance, in a supplicating voice, 
not even noticing the tit-for-tat of the 3^oung man, 
“ consider economy, and later we ma\r be able to serve 
you — ” 

Before starting to see Monsieur Molineux, the owner 
of the adjoining house, Cesar wished to get from Roguin 


CSsar Birotteau. 


99 


the private deed about the transference of the lease 
which Alexandre Crottat had been ordered to draw up. 
As he left the notary’s house, he saw du Tillet at the 
window of Roguin’s study. Although the liaison of 
his former clerk with the law3’er’s wife made it not 
unlikel}' that he should see du Tillet there at this hour 
when the negotiations about the Madeleine were going 
on, Birotteau, in spite of his extreme confidence, felt 
uneasy". The excited manner of du Tillet seemed the 
sign of a discussion. “Can he be in it?” thought 
Cesar, with a flash of commercial prudence. The sus- 
picion passed like lightning through his mind. He 
looked again and saw Madame Rogiiin, and the pres- 
ence of du Tillet was no longer suspicious. “ Still, 
suppose Constance were right?” he said to himself. 
“ What a fool I am to listen to women’s notions ! I’ll 
speak of it to my uncle Pillerault this morning ; it is 
onl}" a step from the Cour Batave, where Monsieur 
Molineux lives, to the Rue des Bourdonnais.” 

A cautious observer, or a merchant who had met 
with swindlers in his business career, would have been 
saved by this sight ; but the antecedents of Birotteau, 
the incapacity of his mind, which had little power to 
follow up the chain of inductions by which a superior 
man reaches a conclusion, all conspired to blind him. 
Pie found the umbrella-man in full dress, and they were 
about to start, when Virginie, the cook, caught him by 
the arm : — 

“Monsieur, madame does not wish you to go 
out—” 

“ Pshaw ! ” said Birotteau, “ more women’s notions I' 

u — without your coffee, which is ready.” 


100 


CSsar Birotteau. 


“That^s true. My neighbor,” he said to Cayron, 
“ I have so many things in my head that I can’t think 
of my stomach. Do me the kindness to go forward ; we 
will meet at Monsieur Molineux’ door, unless you are 
willing to go up and explain matters to him, which 
would save time.” 

Monsieur Molineux was a grotesque little man, living 
on his rents, — a species of being that exists nowhere 
but in Paris, like a certain lichen which grows only in 
Iceland. This comparison is all the more apt because 
he belonged to a mixed nature, to an animal- vegetable 
kingdom which some modern Mercier might build up of 
cryptogams that push up upon, and flower, and die in 
or under the plastered walls of the strange unhealthj^ 
houses where they prefer to cluster. The first aspect 
of this human plant — umbelliferous, judging by the 
fluted blue cap which crowned it, with a stalk encased 
in greenish trousers, and bulbous roots swathed in list 
shoes — offered to the eye a flat and faded counte- 
nance, which certainly betrayed nothing poisonous. In 
this queer product might be recognized the t3"pical 
stockholder, who believes every report which the dail}^ 
press baptizes with ink, and is content, for all response, 
to say, “ Read what the papers say,” — the bourgeois, 
essentially the friend of order, alwa^^s revolting in his 
moral being against power, though always obeying it ; 
a creature feeble in the mass but fierce in isolated cir- 
cumstances, hard as a constable when his own rights 
are in question, 3'et giving fresh chickweed to his bird 
and fish-bones to his cat, interrupting the signing of 
a lease to whistle to a canar3% suspicious as a jailer, 
but apt to put his money into a bad business and then 


CSsar Birotteau, 


101 


endeavor to get it back by niggardly avarice. The evil 
savor of this hybrid flower was only revealed by use ; 
its nauseous bitterness needed the stewing of some 
business in which his interests were mingled with those 
of other men, to bring it fully out. Like all Parisians, 
Molineux had the lust of dominating ; he craved the 
share of sovereignty which is exercised more or less by 
every one, even a porter, over a greater or lesser number 
of victims, — over wife, children, tenants, clerks, horses, 
dogs, monkeys, to whom they send, on the rebound, the 
mortifications they have endured in the higher spheres 
to which they aspired. 

This annoying old man had neither wife, child, 
nephew, or niece. He bullied his servant-of-all-work 
too much to make her a victim ; for she escaped all 
contact with her master by doing her work and keep- 
ing out of his way. His appetite for tyranny was thus 
balked ; and to satisfy it in some way he patiently 
studied the laws relating to rentals and party -walls; 
he fathomed the jurisprudence which regulates the 
dwellings of Paris in an infinite number of petty ques- 
tions as to tenants, abutters, liabilities, taxes, repairs, 
sweepings, decorations for the F§te-Dieu, waste-pipes, 
lighting, projections over the public wa}^, and the 
neighborhood of unhealthy buildings. His means, his 
strength, in fact his whole mind was spent in keeping 
his proprietary rights on a complete war-footing. He 
had made it an amusement, and the amusement had be- 
come a monomania. He was fond of protecting citizens 
against the encroachment of illegal proceedings ; but 
finding such subjects of complaint rare, he had finally 
turned upon his own tenants. A tenant became his 


102 


C6%ai Birotteau. 


enemy, his inferior, his subject, his vassal; he laid 
claim to his subservience, and looked upon any man 
as a brute who passed him on the stairway without 
speaking. He wrote out his bills for rent himself, and 
sent them on the morning of the day they fell due. 
The debtor who was behindhand in his payment received 
a legal notice to quit at an appointed time. Then fol- 
lowed seizures, law-suits, costs, and the whole judicial 
array set in motion with the rapidit}’ of what the head’s- 
man calls the ‘‘ mechanism.” Molineux granted neither 
grace nor time ; his heart was a callus in the direction 
of a lease. 

“ I will lend you the money if 3^ou want it,” he would 
sa}" to a man he thought solvent, “but pa}’ my rent; 
all delays carry with them a loss of interest for which 
the law does not indemnify us.” 

After long study of the caprices and capers of tenants 
who persisted, after the fashion of djmasties, in upset- 
ting the arrangements of their predecessors, he had 
drawn up a charter of his own and followed it religiously. 
In accordance therewith, the old fellow made no re- 
pairs : no chimney ever smoked, the stairs were clean, 
the ceilings white, the cornices irreproachable, the floors 
firm on their joists, the paint satisfactory ; the locks 
were never more than three years old, not a pane of 
glass was missing, there were no cracks, and he saw no 
broken tiles until a tenant vacated the premises. When 
he met the tenants on their first arrival he was accom- 
panied by a locksmith and a painter and glazier, — 
very convenient folks, as he remarked. The lessee was 
at liberty to make improvements ; but if the unhappy 
man did so, little Molineux thought night and day of 


CSsar Birotteau, 


103 


how he could dislodge him and relet the improved 
appartement on better terms. He watched and waited 
and spun the web of his mischievous legal proceedings. 
He knew all the tricks of Parisian legislation in the 
matter of leases. Factious and fond of scribbling, he 
wrote polite and specious letters to his tenants; but 
at the bottom of all his civil sentences might be seen, 
as in his faded and cozening face, the soul of a Shy lock. 
He alwa^'s demanded six months* rent in advance, to 
be deducted from the last quarter of the lease under an 
array of prickly conditions which he invented. If new 
tenants offered themselves, he got information about 
them from the police ; for he would not have people of 
certain callings, — he was afraid, for instance, of ham- 
mers. When the lease was to be signed, he kept the 
deed and spelled it over for a week, fearing what he 
called the et coetera of lawyers. 

Outside of his notions as a proprietor, Jean-Baptiste 
Molineux seemed good and obliging. He played at 
boston without complaining of the players ; he laughed 
at the things which make a bourgeois laugh ; talked of 
what others of his kind talked about, — the arbitrary 
powers of bakers who nefariously sell false weights, of 
the police, of the heroic seventeen deputies of the Left. 
He read the “ Good Sense” of the Cur4 Meslier, and 
went to Mass ; not that he had any choice between 
deism and Christianity, but he took the wafer when 
offered to him, and argued that he was therefore safe 
from the interfering claims of the clergy. The inde- 
fatigable litigant wrote letters on this subject to the 
newspapers, which the newspapers did not insert and 
never answered. He was in other respects one of those 


104 


CSsar Birotteau. 


estimable bourgeois who solemnly put Christmas logs 
on their fire, draw kings at play, invent April-fools, 
stroll on the boulevards when the weather is fine, go to 
see the skating, and are alwa^’s to be found on the 
terrace of the Place Louis XV. at two o’clock on the 
days of the fireworks, with a roll in their pockets so 
that they may get and keep a front place. 

The Cour Batave, where the little old man lived, is the 
product of one of those fantastic speculations of which 
no man can explain the meaning after they are once 
completed. This cloistral structure, with arcades and 
interior galleries built of free-stone, with a fountain at 
one end, — a parched fountain, which opens its lion’s 
mouth less to give water than to ask it from the passers- 
b}", — was doubtless invented to endow the Saint-Denis 
quarter with a species of Palais-Ro3"al. The place, un- 
health}" and buried on all four sides by the high walls 
of its houses, has no life or movement except in the da}"- 
time ; it is a central spot where dark passages meet, and 
connect the quarter of the markets with the Saint-Martin 
quarter by means of the famous Rue Quincampoix, — 
damp ways in which hurried foot-passengers contract 
rheumatism. But at night no spot in Paris is more de- 
serted ; it might be called the catacombs of commerce. 
In it there are various industrial cloaca^ very few Dutch- 
men, but a great many grocers. The appartements in 
this merchant-palace have, naturally, no other outlook 
than that of the common court on which all the windows 
give, so that rents are at a minimum. 

Monsieur Molineux lived in one of the angles, on the 
sixth floor for sanitary reasons, the air not being pure 
at a less height than seventy feet above the ground. 


CSsar Birotteau, 


105 


At this altitude the worthy proprietor enjo3"ed an en- 
chanting view of the windmills of Montmartre as he 
walked among the gutters on the roof, where he culti- 
vated flowers, in spite of police regulations against the 
hanging gardens of our modern Babylon. His apparte- 
ment was made up of four rooms, without counting the 
precious anglaises on the floor above him of which he 
had the ke^' ; the}" belonged to him, he had made them, 
and he felt he was legally" entitled to them. On entering 
his appartement, a repulsive barenness plainly showed 
the avarice of the owner : in the antechamber were six 
straw chairs and a porcelain stove ; on the walls, which 
were covered with a bottle-green paper, were four en- 
gravings bought at auction. In the dining-room were 
two sideboards, two cages full of birds, a table cov- 
ered with oil-cloth, a barometer, a window-door which 
opened on the hanging gardens, and chairs of dark 
mahogany covered with horse-hair. The salon had 
little curtains of some old green-silk stuff, and furni- 
ture of painted white-wood covered with green Worsted 
velvet. As to the chamber of the old celibate it was 
furnished with Louis XV. articles, so dirt}" and dis- 
figured through long usage that a woman dressed in 
white would have been afraid of soiling herself by con- 
tact with them. The chimney-piece was adorned by a 
clock with two columns, between which was a dial-case 
that served as a pedestal to Pallas brandishing her 
lance : a myth. The floor was covered w ith plates full 
of scraps intended for the cats, on which there was much 
danger of stepping. Above a chest of drawers in rose- 
wood hung a portrait done in pastel, — Molineux in 
his youth. There were also books, tables covered with 


106 


CSsar Birotteau, 


shabby green bandboxes, on a bracket a number of his 
deceased canaries stuffed ; and, finally, a chilh^ bed that 
might formerly have belonged to a carmelite. 

Cesar Birotteau was delighted with the extreme 
politeness of Molineux, whom he found wrapped in 
a gray woollen dressing-gown, watching his milk in 
a little metal heater on the edge of his fireplace, while 
his coffee-grounds were boiling in a little brown earthen- 
ware jug from which, every now and then, he poured 
a few drops into his coffee-pot. The umbrella-man, 
anxious not to disturb his landlord, had gone to the 
door to admit Birotteau. Molineux held the ma^ws 
and deputies of the city of Paris in much esteem : he 
called them “ my municipal officers.’^ At sight of the 
magistrate he rose, and remained standing, cap in hand, 
until the great Birotteau was seated. 

“No, monsieur; 3"es, monsieur; ah, monsieur, if I 
had known I should have had the honor of receiving 
in the bosom of my humble penates a member of the 
municipality of Pai*is, believe me I should have made 
it my duty to call upon you, although I am 3’our 
landlord — or, on the point of becoming so.” 

Birotteau made him a sign to put on his cap. 

“ No, I shall not ; not until you are seated, and have 
replaced yours, if 3^011 feel the cold. My room is chilly, 
the smallness of m3’ means not permitting — God 
grant your wishes ! ” he added, as Birotteau sneezed 
while he felt in his pockets for the deeds. In present- 
ing them to Molineux Cesar remarked, to avoid all 
unnecessaiy dela3^, that Mpnsieur Roguin the notary 
had drawn them up. 


CSsar Birotteau. 


107 


“ I do not dispute the legal talents of Monsieur Ro- 
guin, an old name well-known in the notariat of Paris ; 
but I have my own little customs, I do m 3 ’ own busi- 
ness (an excusable hobbj’), and mj^ notarv’ is — ” 

“But this matter is simple,” said the per- 

fumer, who was used to the quick business methods 
of merchants. 

“ Simple !” cried Molineux. “ Nothing is simple in 
such matters. Ah ! you are not a landlord, monsieur, 
and you ma}’ think 3 ’ourself happ 3 ’. If you knew to 
what lengths of ingratitude tenants can go, and to what 
precautions we are driven ! Wh 3 ^, monsieur, I once 

had a tenant — ” 

And for a quarter of an hour he recounted how a 
Monsieur Gendrin, designer, had deceived the vigilance 
of his porter. Rue Saint-Honor^. Monsieur Gendrin 
had committed infamies worthy of Marat, — obscene 
drawings at which the police winked. This Gendrin, 
a profoundl}’ immoral artist, had brought in women 
of bad lives, and made the staircase intolerable, — con- 
duct worth}" of a man who made caricatures of the 
government. And wh}" such conduct? Because his 
rent had been asked for on the 15th! Gendrin and 
Molineux were about to have a lawsuit, for, though 
he did not pa}’, Gendrin insisted on holding the empty 
appartement. Molineux received anonymous letters, 
no doubt from Gendrin, which threatened him with 
assassination some night in the passages about the 
Cour Batave. 

“It has got to such a pass, monsieur,” he said, 
winding up the tale, “ that monsieur the prefect of 
police, to whom I confided my trouble (I profited 


108 


CSmr Birotteau. 


by the occasion to drop him a few words on the modi- 
fications which should be introduced into the laws to 
meet the case) , has authorized me to carry pistols for 
my personal safety.” 

The little old man got up and fetched the pistols. 

“ There they are ! ” he cried. 

“ But, monsieur, you have nothing to fear from me,” 
said Birotteau, looking at Cayron, and giving him 
a glance and a smile intended to express pity for 
such a man. 

Molineux detected it ; he was mortified at such a look 
from an ofiScer of the municipality, whose duty it was 
to protect all persons under his administration. In 
an}" one else he might have pardoned it, but in Birotteau 
the deputy-mayor, never ! 

“Monsieur,” he said in a dry tone, “an esteemed 
commercial judge, a deputy-mayor, and an honorable 
merchant would not descend to such petty meannesses, 
— for they are meannesses. But in your case there is 
an opening through the wall which must be agreed to 
by your landlord. Monsieur le comte de Grandville ; 
there are stipulations to be made and agreed upon about 
replacing the wall at the end of your lease. Besides 
which, rents have hitherto been low, but they are rising ; 
the Place Vendome is looking up, the Rue Castiglione 
is to be built upon. I am binding myself — binding 
myself down ! ” 

“ Let us come to a settlement,” said Birotteau, 
amazed. “How much do you want? I know busi- 
ness well enough to be certain that all your reasons 
can be silenced by the superior consideration of money. 
Well, how much is it?” 


Cimr Birotteau, 


109 


“ That’s only fair, monsieur the deputy. How much 
longer does your own lease run ? ” 

“ Seven years,” answered Birotteau. 

“Think what m}^ first fioor will be worth in seven 
3’ears ! ” said Molineux. “ Why, what would two fur- 
nished rooms let for in that quarter ? — more than two 
hundred francs a month perhaps ! I am binding my- 
self — binding myself by a lease. The rent ought to 
be fifteen hundred francs. At that price I will consent 
to the transfer of the two rooms by Monsieur Cayron, 
here present,” he said, with a sly wink at the umbrella- 
man ; “ and I will give you a lease of them for seven 
consecutive years. The costs of piercing the wall are 
to belong to you ; and 3’ou must procure the consent 
of Monsieur le comte de Grandville and the cession 
of all his rights in the matter. You are responsible for 
all damage done in making this opening. You will not 
be expected to replace the wall yourself, that will be 
my business ; but you will at once pay me five hun- 
dred francs as an indemnity towards it. We never 
know who may live or die, and I can’t run after any- 
body to get the wall rebuilt.” 

“Those conditions seem to me pretty fair,” said 
Birotteau. 

“ Next,” said Molineux. “ You must pay me seven 
hundred and fifty francs, hie et hunc^ to be deducted 
from the last six months of your lease ; this will be 
acknowledged in the lease itself. Oh, I will accept 
small bills for the value of the rent at any date you 
please ! I am prompt and square in business. We will 
agree that you are to close up the door on my staircase 
(where you are to have no right of entry), at your own 


) 


110 Cesar Birotteau. 

cost, in masonry. Don’t fear, — I shall ask 3011 no in- 
demnity" for that at the end of your lease ; I consider 
it included in the five hundred francs. Monsieur, y-ou 
will find me just.” 

“We merchants are not so sharp,” said the per- 
fumer. “It would not be possible to do business if 
we made so many stipulations.” 

“Oh, in business, that is very^ different, especially 
in perfumery, where every-thing fits like a glove,” said 
the old fellow with a sour smile ; ‘ ‘ but when you 
come to letting houses in Paris, nothing is unimpor- 
tant. Why, I have a tenant in the Rue Montorgueil 
who — ” 

“ Monsieur,” said Birotteau, “ I am sorry to detain 
you from your breakfast: here are the deeds, correct 
them. I agree to all that you propose, we will sign 
them to-morrow ; but to-day- let us come to an agree- 
ment by word of mouth, for my- architect wants to take 
possession of the premises in the morning.” 

“ Monsieur,” resumed Molineux with a glance at the 
umbrella-merchant, “ part of a quarter has expired ; 
Monsieur Cayron would not wish to pay it ; we will add 
it to the rest, so that y-our lease may run from January 
to January. It will be more in order.” 

“ Very good,” said Birotteau. 

“ And the five per cent for the porter — ” 

“But,” said Birotteau, “if you deprive me of the 
right of entrance, that is not fair.” 

“Oh, you are a tenant,” said little Molineux, 
peremptorily, up in arms for the principle. “ You 
must pay the tax on doors and windows and your 
share in all the other charges. If everything is clearly 


CSsar Birotteau, 


111 


understood there will be no difficulty. You must be 
doing well, monsieur; j’our affairs are prospering?” 

“ Yes,” said Birotteau. “ But my motive is, I may 
say, something different. I assemble my friends as 
much to celebrate the emancipation of our territory as 
to commemorate m3" promotion to the order of the 
Legion of honor — ” 

“Ah! ah!” said Molineux, “a recompense well- 
deserved ! ” 

“Yes,” said Birotteau, “possibly I showed m3'self 
worth}" of that signal and ro3’^al favor by m3" services 
on the Bench of commerce, and b}" fighting for the Bour- 
bons upon the steps of Saint-Roch on the 13 th Vende- 
miaire. These claims — ” 

“ Are equal to those of our brave soldiers of the old 
arm}'. The ribbon is red, for it is dyed with their blood.” 

At these words, taken from the “ Constitutionnel, ” 
Birotteau could not keep from inviting little Moli- 
neux to the ball, who thanked him profusely and 
felt like forgiving the disdainful look. The old man 
conducted his new tenant as far as the landing, and 
overwhelmed him with politeness. When Birotteau 
reached the middle of the Cour Batave he gave Ca3T0ii 
a meiT}'^ look. 

‘ ‘ I did not think there could exist such — weak 
beings ! ” he said, with difficulty keeping back the 
word fools. 

“Ah, monsieur!” said Cayron, “ it is not ever3"body 
that has 3"our talents.” 

Birotteau might easily believe himself a superior 
being in the presence of Monsieur Molineux ; the an- 
swer of the umbrella-man made him smile agreeably, 


112 


Cimr Birotteau, 


and he bowed to him with a truly royal air as they 
parted. 

“ I am close by the Markets,” thought Cesar ; “ I 'll 
attend to the matter of the nuts.” 

After an hour’s search, Birotteau, who was sent b}^ 
the market-women to the Rue de Lombards where nuts 
for sugarplums were to be found, heard from his friend 
Matifat that the fruit in bulk was only to be had of a 
certain Madame Angelique Madou, living in the Rue 
Perrin-Gasselin, the sole establishment which kept the 
true filbert of Provence, and the veritable white hazel- 
nut of the Alps. 

The Rue Perrin-Gasselin is one of the narrow 
thoroughfares in a square lab3Tinth enclosed b^^ the 
qua}', the Rue Saint-Denis, the Rue de la Ferronnerie, 
and the Rue de la Monnaie ; it is, as it were, one of 
the entrails of the city. There swarm an infinite num- 
ber of heterogeneous and mixed articles of merchan- 
dise, evil-smelling and jaunty, herrings and muslin, 
silks and honey, butter and gauze, and above all a 
number of petty trades, of which Paris knows as little 
as a man knows of what is going on in his pancreas, 
and which, at the present moment, had a blood-sucker 
named Bidault, otherwise called Gigonnet, a money- 
lender, who lived in the Rue Grenetat. In this quarter 
old stables were filled with oil-casks, and the carriage- 
houses were packed with bales of cotton. Here were 
stored in bulk the articles that were sold at retail in 
the markets. 

Madame Madou, formerly a fish- woman, but thrown, 
some ten years since, into the dried-fruit trade by a 


CSsar Birotteau, 


113 


liaison with the former proprietor of her present busi- 
ness (an affair which had long fed the gossip of the 
markets), had originall}^ a vigorous and enticing beaut}^ 
now lost however in a vast embonpoint. She lived on 
the lower floor of a yellow house, which was falling to 
ruins, and was held together at each story by iron cross- 
bars. The deceased proprietor had succeeded in get- 
ting rid of all competitors, and had made his business 
a monopoly. In spite of a few slight defects of edu- 
cation, his heiress was able to carry it along, and take 
care of her stores, which were in coachhouses, stables, 
and old workshops, where she fought the vermin with 
eminent success. Not troubled with desk or ledgers, 
for she could neither read nor write, she answered a 
letter with a blow of her flst, considering it an insult. 
In the main she was a good woman, with a high- 
colored face, and a foulard tied over her cap, who 
mastered with bugle voice the wagoners when they 
brought the merchandise ; such squabbles usually end- 
ing in a bottle of the “right sort.’' She had no dis- 
putes with the agriculturists who consigned her the 
fruit, for they corresponded in readj^ money, — the onlj^ 
possible method of communication, to receive which 
Mere Madou paid them a visit in the flne season of 
the year. 

Birotteau found this shrewish trader among sacks 
of Alberts, nuts, and chestnuts. 

“ Good-morning, mj^ dear lady,” said Birotteau with 
a jaunty air. 

“ Tbwr dear!” she said. “Hey! my son, what’s 
there agreeable between us ? Did we ever mount guard 
over kings and queens together?” 

8 


114 


Cesar Birotteau, 


“ I am a perfumer, and what is more I am deput}’- 
ma3"or of the second arrondissement ; thus, as magis- 
trate and as customer, I request 3*ou to take another 
tone with me.” 

“ I maiT}" when I please,” said the virago. “ I don’t 
trouble the maj'or, or bother his deputies. As for my 
customers, the}" adore me, and I talk to ’em as I choose. 
If they don’t like it, the}" can snake off elsewhere.” 

“ This is the result of monopoly,” thought Birotteau. 
' “ Popole ! — that ’s my godson, — he must have got 
into mischief. Have you come about him, my worthy 
magistrate?” she said, softening her voice. 

“ No ; I had the honor to tell you that I came as a 
customer.” 

“Well, well! and what’s your name, my lad? 
Have n’t seen you about before, have I ? ” 

“ If you take that tone, you ought to sell your nuts 
cheap,” said Birotteau, who proceeded to give his name 
and all his distinctions. 

“ Ha I you’re the Birotteau that ’s got the handsome 
wife. And how many of the sweet little nuts may you 
want, my love ? ” 

“ Six thousand weight.” 

“That’s all I have,” said the seller, in a voice like 
a hoarse flute. “ My dear monsieur, you are not one 
of the sluggards who waste their time on girls and per- 
fumes. God bless you, you ’ve got something to do I 
Excuse me a bit. You ’ll be a jolly customer, dear to 
the heart of the woman I love best in the world.” 

“Who is that?” 

“ Hey ! the dear Madame Madou.” 

“ What ’s the price of your nuts?” 


Cimr Birotteau, 


115 


“For you, old fellow, twentj^-five francs a hundred, 
if 3’ou take them all/* 

“ Twent3r-five francs!” cried Birotteau. “Fifteen 
hundred francs ! I shall want perhaps a hundred thou- 
sand a year.” 

“ But just look how fine the}' are ; fresh as a daisy,’* 
she said, plunging her red arm into a sack of filberts. 
“Plump, no empty ones, my dear man. Just think! 
grocers sell their beggarly trash at twenty-four sous a 
pound, and in every four pounds they put a pound of 
hollows. Must I lose my profits to oblige you? You *re 
nice enough, but you don’t please me all that ! If you 
want so many, we might make a bargain at twenty 
francs. I don’t want to send away a deputy-mayor, — 
bad luck to the brides, you know ! Now, just handle 
those nuts ; heavy, are n’t they ? Less than fifty to the 
pound ; no worms there, I can tell you.” 

“ Well, then, send six thousand weight, for two 
thousand francs at ninety days’ sight, to my manufac- 
tory, Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple, to-morrow morning 
early.” 

“ You ’re in as great a hurry as a bride ! Well, 
adieu, monsieur the mayor ; don’t bear me a grudge. 
But if it is all the same to you,” she added, following 
Birotteau through the yard, “ I would like your note at 
forty days, because I have let you have them too cheap, 
and I don’t want to lose the discount. Pere Gigonnet 
may have a tender heart, but he sucks the soul out of 
us as a spider sucks a fly.” 

“ Well, then, fifty days. But they are to be weighed 
by the hundred pounds, so that there may be no hollow 
ones. Without that, no bargain.” 


116 


Cimr Birotteau, 


“Ah, the dog! he knows what he’s about,” said 
Madame Madou ; “can’t make a fool of him! It is 
those rascals in the Rue des Lombards who have put 
him up to that I Those big wolves are all in a pack to 
eat up the innocent lambs.” 

This lamb was five feet high and three feet round, 
and she looked like a mile-post, dressed in striped 
calico, without a belt. 

The perfumer, lost in thought, was ruminating as he 
went along the Rue Saint-Honore about his duel with 
Macassar Oil. He was meditating on the labels and 
the shape of the bottles, discussing the quality of the 
corks, the color of the placards. And 3’et people say 
there is no poetr}’ in commerce ! Newton did not make 
more calculations for his famous binomial than Birot- 
teau made for his Comagene Essence, — for by this 
time the Oil had subsided into an Essence, and he went 
from one description to the other without observing 
any difference. His head spun with his computations, 
and he took the lively activity of its emptiness for 
the substantial work of real talent. He was so pre- 
occupied that he passed the turn leading to his uncle’s 
house in the Rue des Bourdonnais, and had to return 
upon his steps. 


CSsar Birotteau. 


117 


V. 


Claude-Joseph Pillerault, formerly an iron- 
monger at the sign of the Cloche d’Or, had one of 
those faces whose beaut}’ shines from the inner to the 
outer; about him all things harmonized, — dress and 
manners, mind and heart, thought and speech, words 
and acts. He was the sole relation of Madame Birot- 
teau, and had centred all his affections upon her and 
upon Cesarine, having lost, in the course of his com- 
mercial career, his wife and son, and also an adopted 
child, the son of his house-keeper. These heav}’ losses 
had driven the good man into a kind of Christian stoi- 
cism, — a noble doctrine, which gave life to his exist- 
ence, and colored his latter daj’S with the warm, and at 
the same time chilling, tones which gild the sunsets 
of winter. His head, thin and hollowed and swarth}’, 
with ochre and bistre tints harmoniously blended, 
offered a striking likeness to that which artists be- 
stow on Time, though it vulgarized it ; for the habits 
of commercial life lowered the stern and monumental 
character which painters, sculptors, and clock-makers 
exaggerate. Of medium height, Pillerault was more 
thick-set than stout; Nature had built him for hard 
work and long life ; his broad shoulders showed a 
strong frame ; he was dry by temperament, and his 
skin had, as it were, no emotions, though it was not 
insensible. Little demonstrative, as was shown by his 


118 


CSsar Birotteau, 


composed face and quiet attitude, the old man had an 
inward calm not expressed in phrases nor by emphasis. 
His eye, the pupil of which was green, mingled with 
black lines, was remarkable for its unalterable clear- 
ness. His forehead, wrinkled in straight lines and 
yellowed bj" time, was small and narrow, hard, and 
crowned with silver-gray hair cut so short that it looked 
like felt. His delicate mouth showed prudence, but not 
avarice. The vivacity of his eye showed the purity of 
his life. Integrity, a sense of duty, and true modesty 
made, as it were, a halo round his head, bringing his 
face into the relief of a sound and healthful existence. 

For sixty years he had led the hard and sober life 
of a determined worker. His history was like Cesar’s, 
except in happiness. A clerk till thirt}" 3’ears of age, 
his property was all in his business at the time when 
Cesar put his savings into the Funds ; he had suffered, 
like others, under the Maximum, and the pickaxes and 
other implements of his trade had been requisitioned. 
His reserved and judicious nature, his forethought and 
mathematical reflection, were seen in his methods of 
work. The greater part of his business was conducted 
b^’ word of mouth, and he seldom encountered diflacul- 
ties. Like all thoughtful people he was a great ob- 
server ; he let people talk, and then studied them. He 
often refused advantageous bargains on which his 
neighbors pounced ; later, when the}" regretted them, 
the}^ declared that Pillerault had “ a nose for swindlers.” 
He preferred small and certain gains to bold strokes 
which put large sums of money in jeopardy. He dealt 
in cast-iron chimney backs, gridirons, coarse fire-dogs, 
kettles and boilers in cast or wrought iron, hoes, and 


C6%ar Birotteau, 


119 


all the agricultural implements of the peasantry. This 
line, which was sufficientty unremunerative, required an 
immense mechanical toil. The gains were not in pro- 
portion to the labor ; the profits on such heavy articles, 
difficult to move and expensive to store, were small. 
He himself had nailed up many a case, packed and 
unpacked many a bale, unloaded man}^ a wagon. No 
fortune was ever more nobl^^ won, more legitimate or 
more honorable, than his. He had never overcharged 
or sought to force a bargain. In his latter business 
daj's he might be seen smoking his pipe before the 
door of his shop looking at the passers-by, and watch- 
ing his clerks as they worked. In 1814, the period at 
which he retired from business, his fortune consisted, 
in the first place, of seventy thousand francs, which he 
placed in the public Funds, and from which he derived 
an income of five thousand and some odd hundred 
francs a year ; next of fort 3 ^ thousand francs, the value 
of his business, which he had sold to one of his clerks ; 
this sum was to be paid in full at the end of five 3 ears, 
without interest. Engaged for thirt 3 * 3 ’ears in a business 
which amounted to a hundred thousand francs a 3 ear, 
he had made about seven per cent profit on the amount, 
and his living had absorbed one half of that profit. 
Such was his record. His neighbors, little envious of 
such mediocrit 3 ", praised his excellence without under- 
standing it. 

At the corner of the Rue de la Monnaie and the Rue 
Saint-Honore is the cafe David, where a few old mer- 
chants, like Pillerault, take their coffee in the evenings. 
There, the adoption of the son of his cook had been the 
subject of a few jests, such as might be addressed to a 


120 


CSsar Birotteau. 


man much respected, for the iron-monger inspired re- 
spectful esteem, though he never sought it ; his inward 
self-respect sufficed him. So when he lost the young 
man, two hundred friends followed the body to the 
cemetery. In those days he was heroic. His sorrow, 
restrained like that of all men who are strong without 
assumption, increased the sympathy felt in his neighbor- 
hood for the “ worthy man,” — a term applied to Piller- 
ault in a tone which broadened its meaning and enno- 
bled it. The sobriety of Claude Pillerault, long become 
a habit, did not 3deld before the pleasures of an idle life 
when, on quitting his business, he sought the rest which 
drags down so many of the Parisian bourgeoisie. He 
kept up his former ways of life, and enlivened his old 
age by convictions and interests, which belonged, we 
must admit, to the extreme Left. Pillerault belonged 
to that working-men’s party which the Revolution had 
fused with the bourgeoisie. The only blot upon his 
character was the importance he attached to the triumph 
of that part}^ ; he held to all the rights, to the liberty, 
and to the fruits of the Revolution ; he believed that 
his peace of mind and his political stability were endan- 
gered by the Jesuits, whose secret power was proclaimed 
aloud b}' the Liberals, and menaced by the principles 
with which the “ Constitutionnel ” endowed Monsieur. 
He was quite consistent in his life and ideas ; there was 
nothing narrow about his politics ; he never insulted his 
adversaries, he dreaded courtiers and believed in repub- 
lican virtues ; he thought Manuel a pure man. General 
Foy^ a great one, Casimir Perier without ambition, 
Lafayette a political prophet, and Courier a worthy 
fellow. He had indeed some noble chimeras. The 


Cimr Birotteau. 


121 


fine old man lived a fam% life ; he went about among 
the Ragons, his niece Birotteau, the judge Popinot, 
Joseph Lebas, and his friend Matifat. Fifteen hun- 
dred francs a year sufficed for all his personal wants. 
As to the rest of his income he spent it on good deeds, 
and in presents to his great-niece ; he gave a dinner 
four times a 3^ear to his friends, at Roland’s, Rue du 
Hasard, and took them afterwards to the theatre. He 
pla3"ed the part of those old bachelors on whom married 
women draw at sight for their amusements, — a coun- 
try jaunt, the opera, the Montagnes-Beaujon, et coetera, 
Pillerault was made happ3^ by the pleasure he gave ; 
his joys were in the hearts of others. Though he had 
sold his business, he did not wish to leave the neighbor- 
hood to which all his habits tied him ; and he took a 
small appartement of three rooms in the Rue des 
Bourdonnais on the fourth floor of an old house. 

Just as the moral nature of Molineux could be seen 
in his strange interior, the pure and simple life of Pille- 
rault was revealed by the arrangements of his modest 
home, consisting of an antechamber, a sitting-room, 
and bed-room. Judged b3" dimensions, it was the cell 
of a Trappist. The antechamber, with a red-tiled 
floor, had only one window, screened by a cambric 
curtain with a red border; mahogany chairs, covered 
with reddish sheep’s leather put on with gilt nails, walls 
hung with an olive-green paper, and otherwise deco- 
rated with the American Declaration of Independence, 
a portrait of Bonaparte as First Consul, and a represen- 
tation of the battle of Austerlitz. The salon, decorated 
undoubtedl3" by an upholsterer, had a set of furniture 
with arched tops covered in yellow, a carpet, chimney 


122 


Cizar Birotteau, 


ornaments of bronze without gilding, a painted chimney, 
board, a console bearing a vase of flowers under a glass 
case, a round table covered with a cloth, on which stood 
a liqueur-stand. The newness of this room proclaimed 
a sacrifice made by the old man to the conventions of 
the world ; for he seldom received any one at home. 
In his bedroom, as plain as that of a monk or an old 
soldier (the two men best able to estimate life), a 
crucifix with a basin of holy-water first caught the eye. 
This profession of faith in a stoical old republican was 
strangely moving to the heart of a spectator. 

An old woman came to do his household work ; but 
his respect for women was so great that he would not 
let her black his boots, and he subscribed to a boot- 
black for that service. His dress was simple, and in- 
variably the same. He wore a coat and trousers of 
dark-blue cloth, a waistcoat of some printed cotton 
fabric, a white cravat, high shoes, and on gala days he 
put on a coat with brass buttons. His habits of rising, 
breakfasting, going out, dining, his evening resorts, and 
his returning hours were all stamped with the strictest 
punctuality ; for regular habits are the secret of long 
life and sound health. Politics never came to the 
surface in his intercourse with Cesar, the Ragons, or 
the Abbe Loraux ; for the good people of that circle 
knew each other too well to care to enter the region of 
proselytism. Like his nephew and like the Ragons, 
he put implicit confidence in Roguin. To his mind 
the notary was a being worthy of veneration, — the 
living image of probity. In the affair of the lands 
about the Madeleine, Pillerault had undertaken a pri- 
vate examination, which was the real cause of the 


CSsar Birotteau, 123 

boldness with which C 4 sar had combated his wife’s 
presentiments. 

The perfumer went up the seventy-eight stairs which 
led to the little brown door of his uncle’s apartment, 
thinking as he went that the old man must be very hale 
to mount them daily without complaining. He found 
a frock-coat and pair of trousers hanging on the hat- 
stand outside the door. Madame Vaillant brushed and 
cleaned them while this genuine philosopher, wrapped 
in a gray woollen garment, breakfasted in his chimney- 
corner and read the parliamentary debates in the 
“ Constitutionnel” or the “Journal du Commerce.” 

“Uncle,” said Cesar, “the matter is settled; they 
are drawing up the deeds ; but if you have any fears or 
regrets, there is still time to give it up.” 

“Why should I give it up? The thing is good; 
though it may be long before we realize anything, like 
all safe investments. My fifty thousand francs are in 
the bank. I received yesterday the last instalment, five 
thousand francs, from m3’ business. As for the Ragons, 
they have put their whole fortune into the alTair.” 

‘ ‘ How do they contrive to live ? ” 

“ Never mind how ; the}^ do live.” 

“Uncle, I understand!” said Birotteau, deeply 
moved, pressing the hand of the austere old man. 

“How is the affair arranged?” asked Pillerault, 
brusquel}^ 

“I am in for three eighths, you and the Ragons for 
one eighth. I shall credit you for that on my books 
until the question of registration is decided.” 

“ Good I M}^ bo,v, 3’ou must be getting rich to put 
three hundred thousand francs into it. It seems to me 


124 


Cesar Birotteau. 


you are risking a good deal outside of your business. 
Won’t the business suffer? However, that is your 
affair. If 3'ou get a set-back, why the Funds are at 
eighty, and I could sell two thousand francs worth of 
my consolidated stock. But take care, my lad ; for if 
you have to come upon me, it will be your daughter’s 
fortune that 3"Ou will take.” 

“ Ah ! my uncle, how simply you say things ! You 
touch my heart.” 

“General Foy was touching mine in quite another 
fashion just now. Well, go on ; settle the business ; 
lands can’t fly away. We are getting them at half 
price. Suppose we do have to wait six years, there 
will alwaj^s be some returns ; there are wood-j^ards 
which will bring in a rent. We can’t really lose an^"- 
thing. There is but one chance against us. Roguin 
might run off with the mone3^” 

“ M}" wife told me so this very night. She fears — ” 
“ That Roguin will carry off our funds?” said Pille- 
rault, laughing. “ Pra^", why?” 

“ She says there is too much in his nose ; and like all 
men who can’t have women, he is furious to — ” 

With a smile of incredulitj’, Pillerault tore a strip 
from a little book, wrote down an amount, and signed 
the paper. 

“ There,” said he, “ there’s a cheque on the Bank of 
France for a hundred thousand francs for the Ragons 
and for me. Those poor folks have just sold to 3"our 
scoundrel of a du Tillet their fifteen shares in the mines 
at Wortschin to make up the amount. Worthy people 
in trouble, — it wrings my heart ; and such good, noble 
souls, the very flower of the old bourgeoisie ! Thei** 


CSsar Birotteau. 


125 


brother, Popinot the judge, knows nothing about it; 
they hide it from him so that he may not feel obliged 
to give up his other works of charitj'. People who have 
worked, like me, for forty years ! ” 

“ God grant that the Oil of Comagene may triumph ! ” 
cried Birotteau. “ I shall be doublj^ happy. Adieu ; 
come and dine on Sunday with the Ragons, Roguin, and 
Monsieur Claparon. We shall sign the papers day after 
to-morrow, for to-morrow is Friday, you know, and I 
shouldn’t like — ” 

“You don’t surely give in to such superstitions? ” 

“ Uncle, I shall never believe that the day on which 
the Son of God was put to death by man can be a 
fortunate day. Why, we ourselves stop all business on 
the twent^'-first of January. 

“ On Sunday, then,” said Pillerault brusquely. 

“If it w^ere not for his political opinions,” thought 
Birotteau as he went down stairs, “ I don’t believe he 
would have his equal here below. What are politics to 
him ? He would be just as well off if he never thought 
of them. His obstinacy in that direction only shows 
that there can’t be a perfect man.” 

“Three o’clock already!” cried Cesar, as he got 
back to “The Queen of Roses.” 

“Monsieur, do 3^ou mean to take these securities?” 
asked Celestin, showing him the notes of the umbrella- 
maker. 

“ Yes ; at six per cent, without commission. Wife, 
get my dressing things all ready ; I am going to see 
Monsieur V auquelin, — you know wh3^ A white cravat, 
of course.” 

Birotteau gave a few orders to the clerks. Not seeing 


126 


Birotteau. 


Popinot, he concluded that his future partner had gone 
to dress ; and he went gajdj’ up to his room, where the 
Dresden Madonna, magnificently framed according to 
his orders, awaited him. 

“ Hey ! that ’s pretty,” he said to his daughter. 

“Papa, you must say beautiful, or people will laugh 
at 3’ou.” 

“ Upon my word ! a daughter who scolds her father ! 
Well, well ! To my taste I like Hero and Leander 
quite as much. The Virgin is a religious subject, 
suitable for a chapel; but Hero and Leander, ah! 
I shall buy it, for that fiask of oil gave me an idea — ” 

' “ Papa, I don’t know what 3"ou are talking about.” 

“ Virginie! a hackne3'-coach I ” cried Cesar, in sten- 
torian tones, as soon as he had trimmed his beard and 
seen little Popinot appear, who was dragging his foot 
timidl3^ because Cesarine was there. 

The lover had never 3"et perceived that his infirmity 
no longer existed in the e3"es of his mistress. Deli- 
cious sign of love I — which they on whom chance has 
inflicted a bodil3^ imperfection can alone obtain. 

“Monsieur,” he said, “the press will be ready to 
work to-morrow.” 

“Why, what’s the matter, Popinot?” asked Cesar, 
as he saw Anselme blush. 

“Monsieur, it is the 303^ of having found a shop, a 
back-shop, kitchen, chambers above them, and store- 
rooms, — all for twelve hundred francs a year, in the 
Rue des Cinq-Diamants.” 

“We must take a lease of eighteen years,” said 
Birotteau. “ But let us start for Monsieur Vauquelin’s. 
We can talk as we go.” 


CSsar Birotteau, 


127 


Cesar and Popinot got into the hackney-coach before 
the e3^es of the astonished clerks, who did not know 
what to make of these gorgeous toilets and the ab- 
normal coach, ignorant as they were of the great 
projects revolving in the mind of the master of “The 
Queen of Roses.” 

“We are going to hear the truth about nuts,” said 
Cesar, half to himself. 

“ Nuts? ” said Popinot. 

“There you have my secret,” said the perfumer. 
“I’ve let loose the word 7iuts^ — all is there. The oil 
of nuts is the only oil that has any real effect upon hair. 
No perfumer has ever dreamed of it. I saw an en- 
graving of Hero and Leander, and I said to myself, 
If the ancients used all that oil on their heads the}" had 
some reason for it ; for the ancients are the ancients, 
in spite of all the moderns may say ; I stand by Boileau 
about the ancients. I took my departure from that 
point and got to the oil of nuts, thanks to your relation, 
little Bianchon the medical student : he told me that 
at school his comrades used nut oil to promote the 
growth of their whiskers and mustachios. All we need 
is the approval of Monsieur Vauquelin ; enlightened by 
his science, we shall mislead the public. I was in 
the markets just now, talking to a seller of nuts, so 
as to get hold of the raw material, and now I am 
about to meet one of the greatest scientific men in 
France, to get at the quintessence of that commodity. 
Proverbs are no fools ; extremes meet. Now see, my 
boy, commerce is the intermediary between the produc- 
tions of the vegetable kingdom and science. Angelique 
Madou gathers. Monsieur Vauquelin extracts, we se! 


128 


CSmr Birotteau. 


an essence. Nuts are worth five sous a pound, Mon- 
sieur Vauquelin will increase their value one hundred- 
fold, and we shall, perhaps, do a service to humanity ; 
for if vanit}' is the cause of the greatest torments of 
mankind, a good cosmetic becomes a benefaction.” 

The religious admiration with which Popinot listened 
to the father of Cesarine stimulated Birotteau’s elo- 
quence, who allowed himself to expatiate in phrases 
which certainly were extremely wild for a bourgeois. 

“Be respectful, Anselme,” he said, as they reached 
the street where Monsieur Vauquelin lived, “ we are 
about to enter the sanctuary of science. Put the 
Virgin in full sight, but not ostentatiously, in the 
dining-room, on a chair. Pray heaven, I ma}" not 
get mixed up in what I have to say ! ” cried Cesar, 
naively. “ Popinot, this man has a chemical efiect upon 
me ; his voice heats my stomach, and even gives me 
a slight colic. He is my benefactor, and in a few 
moments he will be yours.” 

These words struck Popinot with a cold chill, and he 
began to step as if he were walking on eggs, looking 
nervously at the wall. Monsieur Vauquelin was in his 
study when Birotteau was announced. The academi- 
cian knew that the perfumer and deputy-mayor was 
high in favor, and he admitted him. 

“You do not forget me in the midst of your dis- 
tinctions,” he said, “ there is only a hand’s-breadth, 
however, between a chemist and a perfumer.” 

“ Ah, monsieur ! between your genius and the plain- 
ness of a man like me there is infinity. I owe to you 
what you call my distinctions : I shall never forget it in 
this world, nor in the next.” 


Cesar Birotteau, 


129 


<<0U! in the next they say we shall be all alike, 
kings and cobblers.’* 

“ Provided kings and cobblers lead a holy life here 
below,” said Birotteau. 

“Is that your son?” asked Vauquelin, looking at 
little Popinot, who was amazed at not seeing anything 
extraordinaiy in the sanctum, where he expected to 
find monstrosities, gigantic engines, flying- machines, 
and material substances all alive. 

“ No, monsieur, but a young man whom I love, and 
who comes to ask a kindness equal to your genius, — 
and that is infinite,” said Cesar with shrewd courtesy. 
“We have come to consult you, a second time, on an 
important matter, about which I am as ignorant as a 
perfumer can be.” 

“ Let me hear what it is.” 

“ I know that hair has lately occupied all your 
vigils, and that you have given yourself up to analyzing 
it ; while you have thought of glory, I have thought of 
commerce.” 

“ Dear Monsieur Birotteau, what is it you want of 
me, — the analysis of hair? ” He took up a little paper. 
“ I am about to read before the Academy of Sciences 
a monograph on that subject. Hair is composed of a 
rather large quantity of mucus, a small quantity of 
white oil, a great deal of greenish oil, iron, a few 
atoms of oxide of manganese, some phosphate of lime, 
a tiny quantity of carbonate of lime, a little silica, and 
a good deal of sulphur. The diflfering proportions 
of these component parts cause the diflferences in the 
color of the hair. Red hair, for instance, has more 
greenish oil than any other.” 

9 


130 


C^sar Birotteau. 


Cesar and Popinot opened their eyes to a laughable 
extent. 

“ Nine things ! ” cried Birotteau. “ What ! are there 
metals and oils in hair? Unless I heard it from you, 
a man I venerate, I could not believe it. How amazing ! 
God is great, Monsieur Vauquelin.” 

“ Hair is produced by a follicular organ,” resumed 
the great chemist, — “a species of pocket, or sack, open 
at both extremities. By one end it is fastened to the 
nerves and the blood vessels ; from the other springs 
the hair itself. According to some of our scientific 
brotherhood, among them Monsieur Blainville, the hair 
is really a dead matter expelled from that pouch, or 
crj'pt, which is filled with a species of pulp.” 

“ Then hair is what you might call threads of sweat ! ” 
cried Popinot, to whom Cesar promptly administered a 
little kick on his heels. 

Vauquelin smiled at PopinoPs idea. 

“He knows something, doesn’t he?” said C(5sar, 
looking at Popinot. “But, monsieur, if the hair is 
still-born, it is impossible to give it life, and I am lost ! 
my prospectus will be ridiculous. You don’t know how 
queer the public is ; you can’t go and tell it — ” 

“That it has got manure upon its head,” said Popi- 
not, wishing to make Vauquelin laugh again. 

“Cephalic catacombs,” said Vauquelin, continuing 
the joke. 

“ My nuts are bought ! ” cried Birotteau, alive to the 
commercial loss. “ If this is so why do they sell — ” 

“Don’t be frightened,” said Vauquelin, smiling, “I 
see it is a question of some secret about making the 
hair grow or keeping it from turning gray. Listen I 


CSsar Birotteau, 131 

this is my opinion on the subject, as the result of my 
studies.” 

Here Popinot pricked up his ears like a frightened 
hare. 

“The discoloration of this substance, be it living or 
dead, is, in my judgment, produced by a check to the 
secretion of the coloring matter ; which explains why 
in certain cold climates the fur of animals loses all 
color and turns white in winter.” 

“Hein! Popinot.” 

“It is evident,” resumed Vauquelin, “that altera- 
tions in the color of the hair come from changes in the 
circumjacent atmosphere — ” 

“Circumjacent, Popinot! recollect, hold fast to 
that,” cried C^sar. 

“Yes,” said Vauquelin, “from hot and cold changes, 
or from internal phenomena which produce the same 
effect. Probably headaches and other cephalagic affec- 
tions absorb, dissipate, or displace the generating fluids. 
However, the interior of the head concerns phj^sicians. 
As for the exterior, bring on your cosmetics.” 

“Monsieur,” said Birotteau, “you restore me to 
life ! I have thought of selling an oil of nuts, be- 
lieving that the ancients made use of that oil for their 
hair ; and the ancients are the ancients, as you 
know : I agi'ee with Boileau. Why did the gladia- 
tors oil themselves — ” 

“ Olive oil is quite as good as nut oil,” said Vauque- 
lin, who was not listening to Birotteau. “All oil is 
good to preserve the bulb from receiving injury to the 
substances working within it, or, as we should say 
in chemistry, in liquefaction. Perhaps you are right: 


132 


CSsar Birotteau. 


Dupuytren told me the oil of nuts had a stimulating 
property. I will look into the differences between the 
various oils, beech-nut, colza, olive, and hazel, etc.” 

“Then I am not mistaken,” cried Birotteau, trium- 
phantly. “ I have coincided with a great man. Macas- 
sar is overthrown ! Macassar, monsieur, is a cosmetic 
given — that is, sold, and sold dear — to make the 
hair grow.” 

“My dear Monsieur Birotteau,” said Vauquelin, 
“ there are not two ounces of Macassar oil in all 
Europe. Macassar oil has not the slightest action 
upon the hair ; but the Malays buy it up for its weight 
in gold, thinking that it preserves the hair: they 
don’t know that whale-oil is just as good. No power, 
chemical, or divine — ” 

“ Divine ! oh, don’t say that. Monsieur Vauquelin.” 

“ But, my dear monsieur, the first law of God is to 
be consistent with himself; without unity, no power — ” 

“ Ah ! in that light — ” 

“ No power, as I say, can make the hair grow on 
bald heads ; just as you can never dye, without serious 
danger, red or white hair. But in advertising the bene- 
fits of oil you commit no mistake, you tell no falsehood, 
and I think that those who use it will probably preserve 
their hair.” 

“ Do you think that the royal Academy of Sciences 
would approve of — ” 

“ Oh ! there is no discovery in all that,” said Vau- 
quelin. “ Besides, charlatans have so abused the name 
of the Academy that it would not help you much. My 
conscience will not allow me to think the oil of nuts 
a prodigy.” 


CSsar Birotteau, 


138 


“What would be the best way to extract it; by 
pressure, or decoction?” asked Birotteau. 

“Pressure between two hot slabs will cause the oil 
to flow more abundantly ; but if obtained b}’ pressure 
between cold slabs it will be of better quality’. It 
should be applied to the skin itself,” added Vauquelin, 
kindly, “and not to the hair; otherwise the etfect 
might be lost.” 

“ Recollect all that, Popinot,” said Birotteau, with 
an enthusiasm that sent a glow into his face. “You 
see before you, monsieur, a 3"oung man who will count 
this day among the finest in his life. He knew 3’ou, he 
venerated you, without ever having seen 3’ou. We 
often talk of 3’ou in our home : a name that is in the 
heart is often on the lips. We pray for 3^ou ever}" day, 
my wife and daughter and I, as we ought to pra}" for 
our benefactor.” 

“Too much for so little,” said Vauquelin, rather 
bored by the voluble gratitude of the perfumer. 

“ Ta, ta, ta ! ” exclaimed Birotteau, “ 3’ou canT pre- 
vent our loving 3"ou, j^ou who will take nothing from us. 
You are like the sun ; you give light, and those whom 
you illuminate can give j’^ou nothing in return.’^ 

The man of science smiled and rose ; the perfumer 
and Popinot rose also. 

“ Anselme, look well at this room. You permit it, 
monsieur? Your time is precious, I know, but he will 
never have another opportunity.” 

“ Well, have 3"OU got all you wanted?” said Vauque- 
lin to Birotteau. “ After all, we are both commercial 
men.” 

“ Pretty nearly, monsieur,” said Birotteau, retreating 


134 


Cesar Birotteau, 


towards the dining-room, Vauquelin following. “ But 
to launch our Comagene Essence we need a good 
foundation — 

“‘Comagene* and ‘Essence* are two words that 
clash. Call your cosmetic ‘ Oil of Birotteau ; * or, if you 
don’t want to give your name to the world, find some 
other. Why, there *s the Dresden Madonna ! Ah, Mon- 
sieur Birotteau, do you mean that we shall quarrel ? ’* 

“ Monsieur Vauquelin,** said the perfumer, taking 
the chemist’s hand. “This treasure has no value ex- 
cept the time that I have spent in finding it. We had 
to ransack all Germany to find it on China paper before 
lettering. I knew that 3*ou wished for it and that 3^our 
occupations did not leave 3’ou the time to search for it ; 
I have been your commercial traveller, that is all. 
Accept therefore, not a paltry engraving, but efforts, 
anxieties, despatches to and fro, which are the evidence 
of m3" complete devotion. Would that you had wished 
for something growing on the sides of precipices, that 
I might have sought it and said to 3"ou, ‘ Here it is ! * 
Do not refuse ^m3" gift. We have so much reason to 
be forgotten ; allow me therefore to place myself, my 
wife, my daughter, and the son-in-law I expect to 
have, beneath 3"our e3^es. You must sa3" when 3’ou look 
at the Virgin, ‘There are some people in the world 
who are thinking of me.*** 

“I accept,” said Vauquelin. 

Popinot and Birotteau wiped their eyes, so affected 
were the3- b3’ the kindl3' tone in which the academician 
uttered the words. 

“ Will you crown your goodness?” said the perfumer. 

“ What ’s tliat?” exclaimed Vauquelin. 


CSsar Birotteau. 


135 


“I assemble my friends” — he rose from his heels, 
taking, nevertheless, a modest air — “ as much to cele- 
brate the emancipation of our territory as to com- 
memorate my promotion to the order of the Legion 
of honor — ” 

“ Ah ! ” exclaimed Vauquelin, surprised. 

“ Possibly I showed myself worthy of that signal and 
royal favor, by my services on the Bench of commerce, 
and by fighting for the Bourbons upon the steps of 
Saint-Roch, on the 13th Vendemiaire, where I was 
wounded by Napoleon. My wife gives a ball, three 
weeks from Sunda}^ ; pray come to it, monsieur. Do 
us the honor to dine with us on that day. Your pres- 
ence would double the happiness with which I receive 
my cross. I will write you beforehand.” 

“ Well, yes,” said Vauquelin. 

“My heart swells with joy!” cried the perfumer, 
when he got into the street. “ He comes to my house ! 
I am afraid I ’ve forgotten what he said about hair : do 
you remember it, Popinot I ” 

“Yes, monsieur; and twenty years hence I shall 
remember it still.” 

“What a great man! what a glance, what pene- 
tration!” said Birotteau. “Ah! he made no bones 
about it ; he guessed our thoughts at the first word ; he 
has given us the means of annihilating Macassar oil. 
Yes ! nothing can make the hair grow ; Macassar, you 
lie! Popinot, our fortune is made. We’ll go to the 
manufactory to-morrow morning at seven o’clock ; the 
nuts will be there, and we will press out some oil. It 
is all very well for him to say that any oil is good ; if 
the public knew that, we should be lost. If we did n’t 


136 


CSsar Birotteau, 


put some scent and the name of nuts into the oil, how 
could we sell it for three or four francs the four 
ounces ? ” 

“You are about to be decorated, monsieur?” said 
Popinot, “ what glory for — ” 

“ Commerce ; that is true, my boy.” 

Cesar’s triumphant air, as if certain of fortune, was 
observed by the clerks, who made signs at each other ; 
for the trip in the hackney-coach, and the full dress of 
the cashier and his master had thrown them all into the 
wildest regions of romance. The mutual satisfaction 
of Cesar and Anselme, betrayed by looks diplomatically 
exchanged, the glance full of hope which Popinot cast 
now and then at Cesarine, proclaimed some great event 
and gave color to the conjectures of the clerks. In 
their busy and half cloistral life the smallest events 
have the interest which a prisoner feels in those of his 
prison. The bearing of Madame Cesar, who replied to 
the Olympian looks of her lord with an air of distrust, 
seemed to point to some new enterprise ; for in ordinary 
times Madame C^sar, delighted with the smallest rou- 
tine success, would have shared his contentment. It 
happened, accidentally, that the receipts for the day 
amounted to more than six thousand francs ; for several 
outstanding bills chanced to be paid. 

The dining-room and the kitchen, lighted from a little 
court, and separated from the dining-room by a passage, 
from which the staircase, taken out of a corner of the 
backshop, opened up, was on the entresol where in for- 
mer days Cesar and Constance had their appartement ; 
in fact, the dining-room, where the honey-moon had been 
passed, still wore the look of a little salon. During 


Cimr Birotteau, 


137 


dinner Raguet, the trusty boy of all work, took charge 
of the shop ; but the clerks came down when the dessert 
was put on table, leaving Cesar, his wife and daughter 
to finish their dinner alone by the chimney corner. 
This habit was derived from the Ragons, who kept up 
the old-fashioned usages and customs of former com- 
mercial daj’s, which placed an enormous distance be- 
tween the masters and the apprentices. Cesarine or 
Constance then prepared for Birotteau his cup of coffee, 
which he took sitting on a sofa by the corner of the 
fire. At this hour he told his wife all the little events 
of the day, and related what he had seen in the streets, 
what was going on in the Faubourg du Temple, and 
the difficulties he had met with in the manufactory, 
et ccetera. 

“ Wife,” he said, when the clerks had gone down, 
“this is certainly one of the most important days in 
our life ! The nuts are bought, the hydraulic press is 
read}’ to go to work, the land aflair is settled. Here, 
lock up that cheque on the Bank of France,” he added, 
handing her Pillerault’s paper. “The improvements 
in the house are ordered, the dignity of our appartement 
is about to be increased. Bless me ! I saw, down in 
the Cour Batave, a ver}^ singular man,” — and he told 
the tale of Monsieur Molineux. 

“ I see,” said his wife, interrupting him in the middle 
of a tirade, “ that you have gone in debt two hundred 
thousand francs.” 

“ That is true, wife,” said Cesar, with mock humility, 
“Good God, how shall we pay them? It counts for 
nothing that the lands about the Madeleine will some 
day become the finest quarter of Paris.” 


138 


Cimr Birotteau, 


“ Some da}', Cesar ! ” 

“Alas!” he said, going on with his joke, “ 
three eighths will only be worth a million in six years. 
How shall I ever pay that two hundred thousand 
francs?” said Cesar, with a gesture of alarm. “ Well, 
we shall be reduced to pay them with that,” he added, 
pulling from his pocket a nut, which he had taken from 
Madame Madou and carefully preserved. 

He showed the nut between his fingers to Constance 
and Cesarine. His wife was silent, but Cesarine, much 
puzzled, said to her father, as she gave liim his coffee, 
“ What do you mean, papa, — are you joking? ” 

The perfumer, as well as the clerks, had detected 
during dinner the glances which Popinot had cast at 
Cesarine, and he resolved to clear up his suspicions. 

“Well, my little daughter,” he said, “this nut will 
revolutionize our home. From this day forth there will 
be one person the less under m3' roof.” 

Cesarine looked at her father with an e3'e which 
seemed to say, ‘ ‘ What is that to me ? ” 

“ Popinot is going away.” 

Though Cesar was a poor observer, and had, more- 
over, prepared his phrase as much to herald the crea- 
tion of the house of A. Popinot and Compan}', as to set 
a trap for his daughter, yet his paternal tenderness 
made him guess the confused feelings which rose in 
Cesarine’s heart, blossomed in roses on her che,ek, 
suffused her forehead and even her e3'es as she lowered 
them. Cesar thought that words must have passed 
between Cesarine and Popinot. He was mistaken : 
the two children comprehended each other, like all 
timid lovers, without a word. 


CSsar Birotteau, 


139 


Some moralists hold that love is an involuntary 
passion, the most disinterested, the least calculating, 
of all the passions, except maternal love. This opinion 
carries with it a vulgar error. Though the majority of 
men may be ignorant of the causes of love, it is none 
the less true that all sympathy, moral or physical, is 
based upon calculations made either by the mind, or by 
sentiment or brutalit3^ Love is an essentially selfish 
passion. Self means deep calculation. To every mind 
which looks onl}" at results, it will seem at first sight 
singular and unlikely that a beautiful girl like Cesarine 
should love a poor lame fellow with red hair. Yet this 
phenomenon is completely in harmony’ with the arith- 
metic of middle-class sentiments. To explain it, would 
be to give the reason of marriages which are constantl^^ 
looked upon with surprise, — marriages between tall and 
beautiful women and puny men, or between ugl}" little 
creatures and handsome men. Everjr man who is cursed 
with some bodily infirmity, no matter what it is, — 
club-feet, a halting-gait, a humped-back, excessive ugli- 
ness, claret stains upon the cheek, Roguin’s species of 
deformity", and other monstrosities the result of causes 
beyond the control of the sufferer, — has but two 
courses open to him : either he must make himself 
feared, or he must practise the virtues of exquisite 
loving-kindness ; he is not permitted to fioat in the 
middle currents of average conduct which are habitual 
to other men. If he takes the first course he probably 
has talent, genius, or strength of will ; a man inspires 
terror only by the power of evil, respect by genius, 
fear through force of mind. If he chooses the second 
course, he makes himself adored ; he submits to femi 


140 


CSsar Birotteau. 


nine tyranny, and knows better how to love than men 
of irreproachable bodily condition. 

Anselme, brought up by virtuous people, by the 
Ragons, models of the honorable bourgeoisie, and by 
his uncle the judge, had been led, through his ingenuous 
nature and his deep religious sentiments, to redeem 
the slight deformity of his person by the perfection of 
his character. Constance and Cesar, struck by these 
tendencies, so attractive in youth, had repeatedly sung 
his praises before Cesarine. Pett}^ as they might be in 
many ways, husband and wife were noble by nature, 
and understood the deep things of the heart. Their 
praises found an echo in the mind of the young girl, 
who, despite her innocence, had read in Anselme^s pure 
eyes the violent feeling, which is always flattering what- 
ever be the lover’s age, or rank, or personal appear- 
ance. Little Popinot had far more reason to adore a 
woman than a handsome man could ever have. If she 
were beautiful, he would love her madly to his dying 
day ; his fondness would inspire him with ambition ; 
he would sacrifice his own life that his wife’s might be 
happy ; he would make her mistress of their home, 
and be himself the first to accept her sway. Thus 
thought Cesarine, involuntarily^ perhaps, yet not alto- 
gether crudely ; she gave a bird’s-eye glance at the 
harvest of love in her own home, and reasoned by" in- 
duction ; the happiness of her mother was before her 
eyes, — she wished for no better fate ; her instinct told 
her that Anselme was another Cesar, improved by his 
education, as she had been improved by hers. She 
dreamed of Popinot as mayor of an arrondissement, 
and liked to picture herself taking up the collections 


CSsar Birotteau, 


141 


in their parish church as her mother did at Saint-Roch. 
She had reached the point of no longer perceiving the 
difference between the left leg and the right leg of her 
lover, and was even capable of saying, in all sincerity, 
“Does he limp?” She loved those liquid eyes, and 
liked to watch the effect her own glance had upon them, 
as they lighted up for a moment with a chaste flame, 
and then fell, sadly. 

Roguin’s head-clerk, Alexandre Crottat, who was 
gifted with the precocious experience which comes 
from knowledge acquired in a law3*er’s office, had an 
air and manner that was half comical, half silly, which 
revolted Cesarine, already disgusted by the trite and 
commonplace character of his conversation. The 
silence of Popinot, on the other hand, revealed his 
gentle nature ; she loved the smile, partly mournful, 
with which he listened to trivial vulgarities. The silly 
nonsense which made him smile filled her with repul- 
sion ; they were grave or gay in sympathy. This 
hidden vantage-ground did not hinder Anselme from 
plunging into his work , and his indefatigable ardor 
in it pleased Cesarine, for she guessed that when his 
comrades in the shop said, “ Mademoiselle Cesarine 
will marry Roguin’s head-clerk,” the poor lame Anselme, 
with his red hair, did not despair of winning her himself. 
A high hope is the proof of a great love. 

“ Where is he going? ” asked Cesarine of her father, 
trying to appear indifferent. 

“He is to set up for himself in the Rue des Cinq- 
Diamants ; and, my faith ! by the grace of God ! ” cried 
Cesar, whose exclamations were not understood by his 
wife, nor by his daughter. 


142 


Cimr Birotteau. 


When Birotteau encountered a moral difficulty he did 
as the insects do when there is an obstacle in their 
-way, — he turned either to the right or to the left. He 
therefore changed the conversation, resolving to talk 
over Cesarine with his wife. 

“ I told all your fears and fancies about Roguin to 
your uncle, and he laughed,” he said to Constance. 

“You should never tell what we say to each o%er ! ” 
cried Constance. “ That poor Roguin may be the best 
man in the world; he is fifty-eight years old, and 
perhaps he thinks no longer of — ” 

She stopped short, seeing that Cesarine was listening 
attentively, and made a sign to Cesar. 

“Then I have done right to agree to the affair,” 
said Birotteau. 

“You are the master,” she answered. 

Cesar took his wife by the hands and kissed her 
brow; that answer always conveyed her tacit assent 
to her husband’s projects. 

“ Now, then,” cried the perfumer, to his clerks, when 
he went back to them, “ the shop will be closed at ten 
o’clock. Gentlemen, lend a hand ! a great feat ! We 
must move, during the night, all the furniture from 
the first fioor to the second fioor. We shall have, as 
they say, to put the little pots in the big pots, for my 
architect must have his elbows free to-morrow morn- 
ing — Popinot has gone out without my permission;” 
he cried, looking round and not seeing his cashier. 
“Ah, true, he does not sleep here any more, I forgot 
that. He is gone,” thought C^sar, “ either to write 
down Monsieur Vauquelin’s ideas, or else to hire 
the shop.” 


CSsar Birotteau, 


143 


“We all know the cause of this household change,” 
said Celestin, speaking in behalf of the two other clerks 
and Raguet, grouped behind him. “ Is it allowable to 
congratulate monsieur upon an honor which reflects its 
light upon the whole establishment? Popinot has told 
us that monsieur — ” 

“ Hey, hey ! m}^ children, it is all true. I have been 
decorated. I am about to assemble m3’ friends, not 
only to celebrate the emancipation of our territory, but 
to commemorate m3’ promotion to the order of the 
Legion of honor. I may, possibl3% have shown myself 
worthy of that signal and ro3’al favor b3’ m3’ services 
on the Bench of commerce, and by fighting for the 
ro3’al cause ; which I defended — at 3’our age — upon 
the steps of Saint-Roch on the 13 th Vendemiaire, and 
I give you my word that Napoleon, called emperor, 
wounded me himself ! wounded me in the thigh ; and 
Madame Ragon nursed me. Take courage ! recompense 
comes to every man. Behold, my sons ! misfortunes 
are never wasted.” 

“ The3’ will never fight in the streets again,” said 
Celestin. 

“ Let us hope so,” said C^sar, who thereupon went 
oflT Into an harangue to the clerks, which he wound up 
by inviting them to the ball. 

The vision of a ball inspired the three clerks, 
Raguet, and Virginie the cook with an ardor that gave 
them the strength of acrobats. They came and went up 
and down the stairs, carr3’ing everything and breaking 
nothing. B3^ two o’clock in the morning the removal 
was eflfected. Cesar and his wife slept on the second 
floor. Popinot’s bedroom became that of Celestin and 


144 


CSsar Birotteau, 


the second clerk. On the third floor the furniture was 
stored provisionally. 

In the grasp of that magnetic ardor, produced by an 
influx of the nervous fluid, which lights a brazier in the 
midrifl* of ambitious men and lovers intent on high 
emprise, Popinot, so gentle and tranquil usuall}’^, pawed 
the earth like a thoroughbred before the race, when he 
came down into the shop after dinner. 

“ What’s the matter with you?” asked Celestin. 

“ Oh, what a day ! my dear fellow, what a day ! I am 
set up in business, and Monsieur C^sar is decorated.” 

“ You are very lucky if the master helps you,” said 
Celestin. 

Popinot did not answer ; he disappeared, driven by 
a furious wind, — the wind of success. 

“Lucky!” said one of the clerks, who was sorting 
gloves by the dozen, to another who was comparing 
prices on the tickets. Lucky! the master has found 
out that Popinot is making eyes at Mademoiselle Cesar- 
ine, and, as the old fellow is pretty clever, he gets rid 
of Anselme ; it would be difficult to refuse him point- 
blank, on account of his relations. Celestin thinks the 
trick is luck or generosity 1 ” 


C^sar Birotteau, 


145 


VI. 

Anselme Popinot went down the Rue Saint-Honor^ 
and rushed along the Rue des Deux-Ecus to seize upon 
a 3’oung man whom his commercial second-sight pointed 
out to him as the principal instrument of his future 
fortune. Popinot the judge had once done a gi’eat 
service to the cleverest of all commercial travellers, 
to him whose triumphant loquacity and activity were to 
win him, in coming 3’ears, the title of The Illustrious. 
Devoted especiallj" to the hat-trade and the article- 
Paris^ this prince of travellers was called, at the time 
of which we write, purelj^ and simpl}’, Gaudissart. At 
the age of twenty-two he was already famous by the 
power of his commercial magnetism. In those da3’8 
he was slim, with a jo3’ous e3’e, expressive face, un- 
wearied memory, and a glance that guessed the wants 
of every one ; and he deserved to be, what in fact he 
became, the king of commercial travellers, the French- 
man par excellence. A few da3's earlier Popinot had 
met Gaudissart, who mentioned that he was on the 
point of departure ; the hope of finding him still in 
Paris sent the lover flying into the Rue des Deux- 
^Icus, where he learned that the traveller had engaged 
his place at the Messageries-Royales. To bid adieu 
to his beloved capital, Gaudissart had gone to see 
a new piece at the Vaudeville; Popinot resolved to 


146 


Cimr Birotteau, 


wait for him. Was it not drawing a cheque on fortune 
to intrust the launching of the oil of nuts to this in- 
comparable steersman of mercantile inventions, already 
petted and courted b}’ the richest firms? Popinot had 
reason to feel sure of Gaudissart. The commercial 
traveller, so knowing in the art of entangling that most 
wary of human beings, the little provincial trader, had 
himself become entangled in the first conspiracy at- 
tempted against the Bourbons after the Hundred Days. 
Gaudissart, to whom the open firmament of heav^en was 
indispensable, found himself shut up in prison, under the 
weight of an accusation for a capital offence. Popinot 
the judge, who presided at the trial, released him on 
the ground that it was nothing worse than his im- 
prudent folly which had mixed him up in the aflTair. 
A judge anxious to please the powers in office, or a 
rabid ro3^alist, would have sent the luckless travel- 
ler to the scaffold. Gaudissart, who believed he owed 
his life to the judge, cherished the grief of being 
unable to make his savior any other return than 
that of sterile gratitude. As he could not thank a 
judge for doing justice, he went to the Ragons and 
declared himself liege-vassal forever to the house of 
Popinot. 

While waiting about for Gaudissart, Anselme natu- 
rally" went to look at the shop in the Rue des Cinq-Dia- 
mants, and got the address of the owner, for the purpose 
of negotiating a lease. As he sauntered through the 
dusky labyrinth of the great market, thinking how to 
achieve a rapid success, he suddenly came, in the Rue 
Aubry^-le-Boucher, upon a rare chance, and one of good 
omen, with which he resolved to regale Cesar on the 


CSsar Birotteau. 


147 


morrow. Soon after, while standing about the door 
of the Hotel du Commerce, at the end of the Rue des 
Deux-Ecus, about midnight, he heard, in the far dis- 
tance of the Rue de Crenelle, a vaudeville chorus sung 
by Gaudissart, with a cane accompaniment significantly 
rapped upon the pavement. 

“ Monsieur,” said Anselme, suddenly appearing from 
the doorwa}^ “ two words?” 

“ Eleven, if you like,” said the commercial traveller, 
brandishing his loaded cane over the aggressor. 

“ I am Popinot,” said poor Anselme. 

“ Enough ! ” cried Gaudissart, recognizing him. 
“What do 30U need? Mone^’? — absent, on leave, 
but we can get it. My arm for a duel? — all is 3’ours, 
from my head to my heels,” and he sang, — 

“Behold! behold! 

A Frenchman true! ” 

“ Come and talk with me for ten minutes ; not in 
your room, — we might be overheard, — but on the Quai 
de THorloge ; there ’s no one there at this hour,” said 
Popinot. “It is about something important.” 

“ Exciting, he^' ? Proceed.” 

In ten minutes Gaudissart, put in possession of 
Popinot’s secret, saw its importance. 

“ Come forth! perfumers, hair-dressers, petty retailers!” 

sang Gaudissart, mimicking Lafon in the role of the 
Cid. “ I shall grab ever3r shopkeeper in France and 
Navarre. — Oh, an idea ! I was about to start ; I 
remain ; I shall take commissions from the Parisian 
perfumers.” 


148 


Cimr Birotteau, 


“Why?” 

“To strangle your rivals, simpleton! If I take 
their orders I can make their perfidious cosmetics 
drink oil, simply by talking and working for yours 
only. A first-rate traveller’s trick ! Ha I ha 1 we are 
the diplomatists of commerce. Famous ! As for 3’our 
prospectus, I ’ll take charge of that. I ’ve got a friend 
— earlj^ childhood — Andoche Finot, son of the hat- 
maker in the Rue du Coq, the old buffer who launched 
me into travelling on hats. Andoche, who has a great 
deal of wit, — he got it out of all the heads tiled b^^ his 
father, — he is in literature ; he does the minor theatres 
in the “ Courrier des Spectacles.” His father, an old 
dog chock-full of reasons for not liking wit, won’t be- 
lieve in it ; impossible to make him see that mind can 
be sold, sells itself in fact : he won’t believe in anything 
but the three-sixes. Old Finot manages 3"oung Finot 
by famine. Andoche, a capable man, no fool, — I 
don’t consort with fools, except commercial!}^, — An- 
doche makes epigrams for the “ Fidele Berger,” which 
pays ; while the other papers, for which he works like 
a galle^^-slave, keep him down on his marrow-bones 
in the dust. Are not they jealous, those fellows? 
Just the same in the article- Paris ! Finot wrote a 
superb comedy in one act for Mademoiselle Mars, 
most glorious of the glorious ! — ah, there ’s a woman 
I love ! — Well, in order to get it pla^^ed he had to 
take it to the Gaite. Andoche understands prospec- 
tuses, he worms himself into the mercantile mind ; and 
he ’s not proud, he ’ll concoct it for us gratis. Damn 
it ! with a bowl of bunch and a few cakes we ’ll get it 
out of him ; for, Popinot, no nonsense ! I am to travel 


C^sar Birotteau. 


149 


on your commission without pay: your competitors 
shall pay; I’ll diddle it out of them. Let us under- 
stand each other clearly. As for me, this triumph is 
an affair of honor. My reward is to be best man at 
your wedding ! I shall go to Italy, Germany, England ! 
I shall carry with me placards in all languages, paste 
them everywhere, in villages, on doors of churches, all 
the best spots I can find in provincial towns ! The oil 
shall sparkle, scintillate, glisten on every head. Ha! 
your marriage shall not be a sham ; we ’ll make it a 
pageant, colors flying ! You shall have your C^sarine, 
or my name shall not be Illustrious, — that is what 
Pere Finot calls me for having got off his gray hats. In 
selling your oil I keep to my own sphere, the human 
head ; hats and oil are well-known preservatives of the 
public hair.” 

Popinot returned to his aunt’s house, where he 
was to sleep, in such a fever, caused by his visions 
of success, that the streets seemed to him to be run- 
ning oil. He slept little, dreamed that his hair was 
madly growing, and saw two angels who unfolded, 
as they do in melodramas, a scroll on which was 
written “ Oil Cesarienne.” He woke, recollected the 
dream, and vowed to give the oil of nuts that sacred 
name, accepting the sleeping fancy as a celestial 
mandate. 

Cesar and Popinot were at their work-shop in the 
Faubourg du Temple the next morning long before the 
arrival of the nuts. While waiting for Madame Ma- 
dou’s porters, Popinot triumphantly recounted his treaty 
of alliance with Gaudissart. 


150 


C6%aT Birotteau, 


“ Have we indeed the illustrious Gaudissart? Then 
are we millionaires ! ” cried the perfumer, extending his 
hand to his cashier with an air which Louis XIV. must 
have worn when he received the Marechal de Villars 
on his return from Denain. 

“We have something besides,” said the happy clerk, 
producing from his pocket a bottle of a squat shape, 
like a pumpkin, and ribbed on the sides. “ I have 
found ten thousand bottles like that, all made ready 
to hand, at four sous, and six months’ credit.” 

“Anselme,” said Birotteau, contemplating the won- 
drous shape of the flask, “yesterday [here his tone 
of voice became solemn] in the Tuileries, — 3- es, no 
later than yesterday*, — 3’ou said to me, ‘ I will succeed.’ 
To-day I — I sa^" to 3’ou, ‘You will succeed.’ Four 
sous ! six months ! an unparalleled shape ! Macassar 
trembles to its foundations ! Was I not right to seize 
upon the only nuts in Paris ? Where did 3’ou And these 
bottles?” 

“I was waiting to speak to Gaudissart, and saun- 
tering — ” 

“Just like me, when I found the Arab book,” cried 
Birotteau. 

“ Coming down the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher, I saw in 
a wholesale glass place, where they make blown glass 
and cases, — an immense place, — I caught sight of this 
flask ; it blinded my eyes like a sudden light ; a voice 
cried to me, ‘ Here ’s 3'our chance ! ’ ” 

“Born merchant! he shall have my daughter,” 
muttered Cesar. 

“ I went in ; I saw thousands of these bottles packed 
in cases.” 


CSsar Birotteau. 


161 


“You asked about them?” 

“ Bo you think me such a ninny?” cried Anselme, in 
a grieved tone. 

“ Born merchant ! ” repeated Birotteau. 

“I asked for glass cases for the little wax Jesus; 
and while I was bargaining about them I found fault 
with the shape of the bottles. From one thing to an- 
other, I trapped the man into admitting that Faille and 
Bouchot, who lately failed, were starting a new cos- 
metic and wanted a peculiar style of bottle ; he was 
doubtful about them and asked for half the money 
down. Faille and Bouchot, expecting to succeed, paid 
the money ; they failed while the bottles were making. 
The assignees, when called upon to pay the bill, arranged 
to leave him the bottles and the mone}" in hand, as an 
indemnit}" for the manufacture of articles thought to be 
ridiculous in shape, and quite unsalable. They cost 
originally eight sous ; he was glad to get rid of them 
for four ; for, as he said, God knows how long he might 
have on his hands a shape for which there was no sale ! 
‘Are 3’ou willing,’ I said to him, ‘to furnish ten thou- 
sand at four sous ? If so, I may perhaps relieve you of 
them. I am a clerk at Monsieur Birotteau’s.’ I caught 
him, I led him, I mastered him, I worked him up, and 
he is all ours.” 

“ Four sous ! ” said Birotteau. “ Bo 3^ou know that 
we could use oil at three francs, and make a profit 
of thirty sous, and give twenty sous discount to re- 
tailers?” 

“ Oil Cesarienne ! ” cried Popinot. 

“Oil Cdsarienne? — Ah, lover! would you flattei 
both father and daughter? Well, well, so be it; Oil 


152 


C6%ar BirotteaUu 


C^sarienne ! The Cesars owned the whole world. They 
must have had fine hair.” 

Cesar was bald,” said Popinot. 

“ Because he never used our oil. Three francs for the 
Oil Cesarienne, while Macassar Oil costs double ! Gau- 
dissart to the fore ! Wq shall make a hundred thousand 
francs this year, for we ’ll pour on every head that re- 
spects itself a dozen bottles a year, — eighteen francs ; 
say eighteen thousand heads, — one hundred and eighty 
thousand francs. We are million naires ! ” 

The nuts delivered, Raguet, the workmen, Popinot, 
and C^sar shelled a sufficient quantit}^, and before four 
o’clock the3^ had several pounds of oil. Popinot carried 
the product to show to Vauquelin, who made him a pres- 
ent of a recipe for mixing the essence of nuts with other 
and less costly’ oleaginous substances, and scenting it. 
Popinot went to work at once to take out a patent for 
the invention and all improvements thereon. The de- 
voted Gaudissart lent him the money to paj" the fees, 
for Popinot was ambitious to pa}" his share in the 
undertaking. 

Prosperity brings with it an intoxication which infe- 
rior men are unable to resist. Cesar’s exaltation of 
spirit had a result not diflScult to foresee. Grindot 
came, and presented a colored sketch of a charmings 
interior view of the proposed appartement. Birotteau, 
seduced, agreed to everything ; and soon the house, 
and the heart of Constance, began to quiver under the 
blows of pick and hammer. The house-painter. Mon- 
sieur Lourdois, a very rich contractor, who had prom- 
ised that nothing should be wanting, talked of gilding 
the salon. On hearing that word Constance interposed. 


CSsar Birotteau. 


163 


“ Monsieur Lourdois,”- she said, “ you have an in- 
come of thirty thousand francs, 3^011 occupy your own 
house, and 3’ou can do what you like to it; but the 
rest of US' — ” 

“ Madame, commerce ought to shine and not permit 
itself to be kept in the shade by the aristocrac3\ ^0* 
sides, Monsieur Birotteau is in the government ; he is 
before the e3’es of the world — ” 

“Yes, but he still keeps a shop,” said Constance, in 
the hearing of the clerks and the five persons who were 
listening to her. “ Neither he, nor I, nor his friends, 
nor his enemies will forget that.” 

Birotteau rose upon the points of his toes and fell 
back upon his heels several times, his hands crossed 
behind him. 

“ My wife is right,” he said ; “ we should be modest 
in prosperit3\ Moreover, as long as a man is in busi- 
ness he should be careful of his expenses, limited in 
his luxur3" ; the law itself imposes the obligation, — he 
must not allow himself “ excessive expenditures.” If the 
enlargement of my home and its decoration were to go 
be3^ond due limits, it would be wrong in me to permit 
it ; you 3'ourself would blame me, Lourdois. The 
neighborhood has its eye upon me ; successful men 
incur jealous3^, envy. Ah ! 3^ou will soon know that, 
3^oung man,” he said to Grindot; “ if we are calumni- 
ated, at least let us give no handle to the calumny.” 

“ Neither calumn3' nor evil-speaking can touch 3’ou,” 
said Lourdois; “3’our position is unassailable. But 
your business habits are so strong that you must 
argue over ever3^ enterprise ; 3^ou are a deep one — ” 

“True, I have some experience in business. You 


154 


Ci%ar Birotteau, 


know, of course, why I make this enlargement? If 1 
insist on punctuality in the completion of the work, 
it is — ” 

“No.” 

“Well, my wife and I are about to assemble our 
friends, as much to celebrate the emancipation of our 
territory as to commemorate my promotion to the order 
of the Legion of honor — ” 

“What do you say?” said Lourdois, “have they 
given you the cross?” 

“ Yes ; I ma}" possibly have shown myself worthy of 
that signal royal favor by my services on the Bench 
of commerce, and by fighting for the Bourbons upon 
the steps of Saint-Roch, on the 13th Vend^miaire, 
where I was wounded by Napoleon. Come to the 
ball, and bring 3 "Our wife and daughter.” 

“ Charmed with the honor 3 "ou deign to pajr me,” said 
Lourdois (a liberal). “Butj^ouare a deep one. Papa 
Birotteau ; you want to make sure that I shall not break 
my word, — that ’s the reason 3 ’ou invite me. Well, I ’ll 
employ my best workmen ; we ’ll build the fires of hell 
and dry the paint. I must find some desiccating pro- 
cess ; it would never do to dance in a fog from the wet 
plaster. We will varnish to hide the smell.” 

Three daj^s later the commercial circles of the quarter 
were in a flutter at the announcement of Birotteau’s 
ball. Everybody could see for themselves the props 
and scaffoldings necessitated by the change of the 
staircase, the square wooden funnels down which the 
rubbish was thrown into the carts stationed in tlie 
street. The sight of men working by torchlight — for 
there were day workmen and night workmen — arrested 


CSsar Birotteau, 


155 


all the idlers and busybodies in the street ; gossip, based 
on these preparations, proclaimed a sumptuous forth- 
coming event. 

On Sunda}^ the day Cesar had appointed to conclude 
the affair of the lands about the Madeleine, Monsieur and 
Madame Ragon, and uncle Pillerault arrived about four 
o’clock, just after vespers. In view of the demolition 
that was going on, so Cesar said, he could only invite 
Charles Claparon, Crottat, and Roguin. The notary 
brought with him the “Journal des Debats” in which 
Monsieur de la Billardiere had inserted the following 
article : — 

“We learn that the deliverance of our territory will be 
feted with enthusiasm throughout France. In Paris the 
members of the municipal body feel that the time has come 
to restore the capital to that accustomed splendor which 
under a becoming sense of propriety was laid aside during 
the foreign occupation. The mayors and deputy-mayors 
each propose to give a ball; this national movement will 
no doubt be followed, and the winter promises to be a bril- 
liant one. Among the fdtes now preparing, the one most 
talked of is the ball of Monsieur Birotteau, lately named 
chevalier of the Legion of honor and well-known for his 
devotion to the royal cause. Monsieur Birotteau, wounded 
in the affair of Saint-Roch, on the 13th Vendemiaire, was 
one of the most respected judges in the department of com- 
merce, and therefore has doubly merited this honor.” 

“How well they write nowadays,” cried Cdsar. 
“ They are talking about us in the papers,” he said 
to Pillerault. 

“ Well, what of it?” answered his uncle, who had a 
special antipathy’ to the “Journal des Ddbats.” 


156 


C6mr Birotteau. 


“ That article may help to sell the Paste of Sultans 
and the Carminative Balm/* whispered Madame Cesar 
to Madame Ragon, not sharing the intoxication of her 
husband. 

Madame Ragon, a tall woman, dry and wrinkled, 
with a pinched nose and thin lips, bore a spurious 
resemblance to a marquise of the old court. The 
circles round her eyes had spread to a wide circum- 
ference, like those of elderly women who have known 
sorrow. The severe and dignified, although aflable, 
expression of her countenance inspired respect. She 
had, withal, a certain oddity about her, which excited 
notice, but never ridicule; and this was exhibited in 
her dress and habits. She wore mittens, and carried 
in all weathers a cane sunshade, like that used by 
Queen Marie- Antoinette at Trianon ; her gown (the 
favorite color was pale-brown, the shade of dead leaves) 
fell from her hips in those inimitable folds the secret 
of which the dowagers of the olden time have carried 
away with them. She retained the black mantilla 
trimmed with black lace woven in large square 
meshes ; her caps, old-fashioned in shape, had the 
quaint charm which we see in silhouettes relieved 
against a white background. She took snuff with 
exquisite nicetj^ and with the gestures which young 
people of the present da}’ who have had the happiness 
of seeing their grandmothers and great-aunts replacing 
their gold snuff-boxes solemnly on the tables beside 
them, and shaking off the grains which straj’ed upon 
their kerchiefs, will doubtless remember. 

The Sieur Ragon was a little man, not over five 
feet high, with a face like a nut-cracker, in which could 


CSsar Birotteau, 


157 


be seen only two ej^es, two sharp cheek-bones, a nose 
and a chin. Having no teeth he swallowed half his 
words, though his style of conversation was effluent, 
gallant, pretentious, and smiling, with the smile he for- 
merly wore when he received beautiful great ladies at 
the door of his shop. Powder, well raked off, defined 
upon his cranium a nebulous half-circle, flanked b}^ 
two pigeon-wings, divided by a little queue tied with 
a ribbon. lie wore a bottle-blue coat, a white waist- 
coat, small-clothes and silk stockings, shoes with gold 
buckles, and black silk gloves. The most marked feat- 
ure of his behavior was his habit of going through the 
street holding his hat in his hand. He looked like a 
messenger of the Chamber of Peers, or an usher of the 
king’s bedchamber, or any of those persons placed near 
to some form of power from which they get a reflected 
light, though of little account themselves. 

“ Well, Birotteau,” he said, with a magisterial air, 
“do 3’ou repent, m3' bo3', for having listened to us in 
the old times ? Did we ever doubt the gratitude of our 
beloved sovereigns?” 

“You have been ver3' happ3', dear child,” said 
Madame Ragon to Madame Birotteau. 

“Yes, indeed,” answered Constance, alwa3"S under 
the spell of the cane parasol, the butterfl3' cap, the 
tight sleeves, and the great kerchief a la Julie which 
Madame Ragon wore. 

“ Cesarine is charming. Come here, m3" love,” said 
Madame Ragon, in her shrill voice and patronizing 
manner. 

“Shall we do the business before dinner?” asked 
uncle Pillerault^ 


158 


C4%ar Birotteau, 


“We are waiting for Monsieur Claparon,” said 
Roguin, “ I left him dressing himself.” 

“Monsieur Roguin,” said Cesar, “I hope you told 
him that we should dine in a wretched little room on 
the entresol — ” 

“ He thought it superb sixteen years ago,” murmured 
Constance. 

“ — among workmen and rubbish.” 

“Bah! you will find him a good fellow, with no 
pretension,” said Roguin. 

“ I have put Raguet on guard in the shop. We 
can’t go through our own door; everything is pulled 
down.” 

“ Why did you not bring your nephew?” said Pille- 
rault to Madame Ragon. 

“ Shall we not see him?” asked C^sarine. 

“No, my love,” said Madame Ragon; “ Anselme, 
dear boy, is working himself to death. That bad- 
smelling Rue des Cinq-Diamants, without sun and with- 
out air, frightens me. The gutter is always blue or 
green or black. I am afraid he will die of it. But 
when a young man has something in his head — ” and 
she looked at Cesarine witli a gesture which explained 
that the word head -meant heart. 

“ Has he got his lease?” asked Cesar. 

“ Yesterdaj’, before a notary,” replied Ragon. “ He 
took the place for eighteen years, but the}' exacted six 
months’ rent in advance.” 

“ Well, Monsieur Ragon, are you satisfied with me?” 
said the perfumer. “ I have given him the secret of a 
great discovery — ” 

“We know you by heart, C^sar,” said little Ragon, 


CSsar Birotteau. 


159 


taking Cesar’s hands and pressing them with religious 
friendship. 

Roguin was not without anxiety as to Claparon’s . 
entrance on the scene ; for his tone and manners were 
quite likel}" to alarm these virtuous and worthy people ; 
he therefore thought it advisable to prepare their 
minds. 

“You are going to see,” he said to Pillerault and 
the two ladies, “ a thorough original, who hides his 
methods under a fearfull3’ bad style of manners ; from 
a ver}^ inferior position he has raised himself up b}’ in- 
telligence. He will acquire better manners through his 
intercourse with bankers. You ma^’ see him on the 
boulevard, or in a cafe tippling, disorder^, betting at 
billiards, and think him a mere idler ; but he is not ; 
he is thinking and studying all the time to keep industry 
alive b^' new projects.” 

“ I understand that,” said Birotteau; “I got my 
great ideas when sauntering on the boulevard ; did n’t 
I, Mimi?” 

“Claparon,” resumed Roguin, “makes up by night- 
work the time lost in looking about him in the da^"- 
time, and watching the current of affairs. All men of 
great talent lead curious lives, inexplicable lives ; well, 
in spite of his desultory ways he attains his object, as I 
can testify. In this instance he has managed to make 
the owners of these lands give way : they were unwil- 
ling, doubtful, timid ; he fooled them all, tired them out, 
went to see them every day, — and here we are, virtually 
masters of the property.” 

At this moment a curious broum / broum / peculiar 
to tipplers of brandy and other liquors, announced the 


160 


CSsar Birotteau, 


arrival of the most fantastic personage of our story, 
and the arbiter in flesh and blood of the future destinies 
of C4sar Birotteau. The perfumer rushed headlong to 
the little dark staircase, as much to tell Raguet to close 
the shop as to pour out his excuses to Claparon for 
receiving him in the dining-room. 

“What of that? It's the very place to juggle a — 
I mean to settle a piece of business.” 

In spite of Roguin’s clever precautions, Monsieur and 
Madame Ragon, people of old-fashioned middle-class 
breeding, the observer Pillerault, Cesarine, and her 
mother were disagreeablj" impressed at flrst sight by 
this sham banker of high finance. 

About twenty-eight years of age at the time of which 
we write, the late commercial traveller possessed not a 
hair on his head, and wore a wig curled in ringlets. 
This head-gear needed, b}" rights, a virgin freshness, 
a lacteal purity of complexion, and all the softer cor- 
responding graces : as it was, however, it threw into 
ignoble relief a pimpled face, brownish-red in color, in- 
flamed like that of the conductor of a diligence, and 
seamed with premature wrinkles, which betra3’ed in the 
puckers of their deep-cut lines a licentious life, whose 
misdeeds were still further evidenced b}’ the badness 
of the man’s teeth, and the black speckles which ap- 
peared here and there on his corrugated skin. Claparon 
had the air of a provincial comedian who knows all the 
roles, and plays the clown with a wink ; his cheeks, 
where the rouge never stuck, were jaded by excesses, 
his lips clammy, though his tongue was forever wag- 
ging, especially when drunk ; his glances were immod- 
est, and his gestures compromising. Such a face, flushed 


C6%ar Birotteau, 


161 


with the jovial fumes of punch, was enough to turn 
grave business matters into a farce ; so that the em- 
bryo banker had been forced to put himself through 
a long course of mimicry before he managed to acquire 
even the semblance of a manner that accorded with his 
fictitious importance. 

Du Tillet assisted in dressing him for this occasion, 
like the manager of a theatre who is uneasy about the 
debut of his principal actor ; he feared lest the vulgar 
habits of this devil-maj-care life should crop up to the 
surface of the newly-fledged banker. ‘ ‘ Talk as little 
as 3*ou can,” he said to him. “ No banker ever gabbles ; 
he acts, thinks, reflects, listens, weighs. To seem like 
a banker j^ou must say nothing, or, at an^' rate, mere 
nothings. Check that ribald e^^e of 3’ours, and look 
serious, even if 3"0u have to look stupid. If 3’ou talk 
politics, go for the government, but keep to generalities. 
For instance : ‘ The budget is heavy ; ’ ‘ No compro- 

mise is possible between the parties ; * ‘ The Liberals 
are dangerous ; ’ ‘ The Bourbons must avoid a conflict ; ’ 
‘ Liberalism is the cloak of a coalition ; ’ ^ The Bour- 
bons are inaugurating an era of prosperity : let us sus- 
tain them, even if we do not like them ‘France has 
had enough of politics,’ etc. Don’t gorge 3’ourself at 
every table where you dine ; recollect you are to main- 
tain the dignit3" of a millionaire. Don’t shovel in your 
snuff like an old Invalide ; toy with your snuff-box, 
glance often at 3"our feet, and sometimes at the ceiling, 
before 3’ou answer ; tr3" to look sagacious, if you can. 
Above all, get rid of your vile habit of touching every- 
thing ; in society a banker ought to seem tired of seeing 
and touching things. Hang it ! you are supposed to be 
11 


162 


CSsar Birotteau, 


passing wakeful nights ; finance niakes you brusque, 
so many elements must be brought together to launch 
an enterprise, — so much study ! Remember to take 
gloomy views of business ; it is heavy, dull, risky, un- 
settled. Now, don’t go beyond that, and mind you 
specify nothing. Don’t sing those songs of Beranger 
at table ; and don’t get fuddled. If j^ou are drunk, 
3’our future is lost. Roguin will keep an e3’e on 3"OU. 
You are going now among moral people, virtuous peo- 
ple ; and you are not to scare them with any of your 
pot-house principles.” 

This lecture produced upon the mind of Charles 
Claparon very much the effect that his new clothes 
produced upon his body. The jovial scapegrace, easy- 
going with all the world, and long used to a comfort- 
able shabbiness, in which his bodj" was no more shackled 
than his mind was shackled by language, was now en- 
cased in the new clothes his tailor had just sent home, 
rigid as a picket-stake, anxious about his motions as 
well as about his speech ; drawing back his hand when 
it was imprudentlj" thrust out to grasp a bottle, just as 
he stopped his tongue in the middle of a sentence. All 
this presented a laughable discrepancy to the keen ob- 
servation of Pillerault. Claparon’ s red face, and his 
wig with its profligate ringlets, gave the lie to his 
apparel and pretended bearing, just as his thoughts 
clashed and jangled with his speech. But these worthy 
people ended by crediting such discordances to the 
preoccupation of his busy mind. 

“ He is so full of business,” said Roguin. 

“ Business has given him little education,” whispered 
Madame Ragon to Cesarine. 


CSsar Birotteau, 


163 


Monsieur Roguin overheard her, and put a finger on 
his lips : — 

“He is rich, clever, and extremely honorable,” he 
said, stooping to Madame Ragon’s ear. 

“ Something may be forgiven in consideration of 
such qualities,” said Pillerault to Ragon. 

“ Let us read the deeds before dinner,” said Roguin ; 
“ we are all alone.” 

Madame Ragon, C^sarine, and Constance left the 
contracting parties to listen to the deeds read over to 
them by Alexandre Crottat. Cesar signed, in favor of 
one of Roguin’s clients, a mortgage bond for fortj’ 
thousand francs, on his grounds and manufactories 
in the Faubourg du Temple ; he turned over to Ro- 
guin Pillerault’s cheque on the Bank of France, and 
gave, without receipt, bills for twent}' thousand francs 
from his current funds, and notes for one hundred 
and forty thousand francs payable to the order of 
Claparon. 

“ I have no receipt to give you,” said Claparon ; 
“you deal, for your half of the propert}^, with Mon- 
sieur Roguin, as I do for ours. The sellers will get 
their pay from him in cash ; all that I engage to do is 
to see that 3"ou get the equivalent of the hundred and 
forty thousand francs paid to my order.” 

“That is equitable,” said Pillerault. 

“ Well, gentlemen, let us call in the ladies ; it is cold 
without them,” said Claparon, glancing at Roguin, as 
if to ask whether that jest were too broad. 

“Ladies! Ah! mademoiselle is doubtless yours,” 
said Claparon, holding himself very straight and look- 
ing at Birotteau ; “ hey ! you are not a bungler. None 


164 


CSsar Birotteau. 


of the roses you distil can be compared with her; 
and perhaps it is because you have distilled roses 
that — ” 

“Faith!” said Roguin interrupting him, “I am 
very hungr3\'* 

“ Let us go to dinner,” said Birotteau. 

“ We shall dine before a notary,” said Claparon, 
catching himself up. 

“ You do a great deal of business? ” said Pillerault, 
seating himself intentionally next to Claparon. 

“ Quantities ; by the gross,” answered the banker. 
“ But it is all heavy, dull ; there are risks, canals. Oh, 
canals I 3’ou have no idea how canals occupy us ; it is 
easy to explain. Government needs canals. Canals 
are a want especially felt in the departments ; they con- 
cern commerce, 3’ou know. ‘ Rivers,’ said Pascal, ‘ are 
walking markets.’ We must have markets. Markets 
depend on embankments, tremendous earth-works ; 
earth-works employ the laboring-classes ; hence loans, 
which find their way back, in the end, to the pockets 
of the poor. Voltaire said, ‘ Canaux, canards, ca- 
naille 1 ’ But the government has its own engineers ; 
3"Ou can’t get a finger in the matter unless you get on 
the right side of them ; for the Chamber, — oh, mon- 
sieur, the Chamber does us all the harm in the world ! 
It won’t take in the political question hidden under the 
financial question. There ’s bad faith on one side .or 
the other. Would you believe it? there’s Keller in 
the Chamber : now Fran9ois Keller is an orator, he 
attacks the government about the budget, about canals. 
Well, when he gets home to the bank, and we go to him 
with proposals, canals, and so forth, the SI3’ dog is al) 


CSsar Birotteau, 


165 


the other way : everything is right ; we must arrange 
it with the government which he has just been impu- 
dently attacking. The interests of the orator and the 
interests of the banker clash; we are between two 
fires! Now, you. understand how it is that business 
is risky; we have got to please everybody, — clerks, 
chambers, antechambers, ministers — ” 

“Ministers?” said Pillerault, determined to get to 
the bottom of this co-associate. 

“Yes, monsieur, ministers.” 

“ Well, then the newspapers are right?” said Pille- 
rault. 

“There’s m3" uncle talking politics,” said Birotteau. 
“ Monsieur Claparon has won his heart.” 

“ Devilish rogues, the. newspapers,” said Claparon. 
“ Monsieur, the newspapers do all the mischief. They 
are useful sometimes, but they keep me awake manj" 
a night. I wish the}" did n’t. I have put my e3"es out 
reading and ciphering.” 

“To go back to the ministers,” said Pillerault, 
hoping for revelations. 

“Ministers are a mere necessity of government. 
Ah! what am I eating? ambrosia?” said Claparon, 
breaking off. “ This is a sauce you ’ll never find except 
at a tradesman’s table, for the pot-houses — ” 

Here the flowers in Madame Ragon’s cap skipped 
like young rams. Claparon perceived the word was 
low, and tried to catch himself up. 

“ In bank circles,” he said, “ we call the best caf^s, 
— V^r}", and the Freres Proven9aux, — pot-houses in 
jest. Well, neither those infamous pot-houses nor our 
most scientific cooks can make us a sauce like this? 


166 


CSsar Birotteau. 


mellifluous ! Some give 3’ou clear water soured with 
lemon, and the rest drugs, chemicals.” 

Pillerault tried throughout the dinner to fathom this 
extraordinary being ; finding only a void, he began to 
think him dangerous. 

“All ’s well,” whispered Roguin to Claparon. 

“ I shall get out of these clothes to-night, at any 
rate,” answered Claparon, who was choking. 

“ Monsieur,” said Cesar, addressing him, “we are 
compelled to dine in this little room because we are pre- 
paring, eighteen days hence, to assemble our friends, as 
much to celebrate the emancipation of our territory — ” 

“ Right, monsieur; I myself am for the government. 
I belong, in opinion, to the statu quo of the great man 
who guides the destinies of the house of Austria, jolly 
dog ! Hold fast that you may acquire ; and, above all, 
acquire that you ma}’ hold. Those are my opinions, 
which I have the honor to share with Prince Metter- 
nich.” 

“ — as to commemorate my promotion to the order 
of the Legion of honor,” continued Cesar. 

“ Yes, I know. Who told me of that, — the Kellers, 
or Nucingen ? ” 

Roguin, surprised at such tact, made an admiring 
gesture. 

“ No, no ; it was in the Chamber.” 

“ In the Chamber? was it Monsieur de la Billardi^re?” 
said Birotteau. 

“ Precisely.” 

“ He is charming,” whispered C^sar to his uncle. 

“ He pours out phrases, phrases, phrases,” said 
Pillerault, “ enough to drown you.” 


CSmr Birotteau. 167 

Possibly I showed myself worthy of this signal, 
royal favor, — resumed Birotteau. 

“ By your labors in perfumery ; the Bourbons know 
how to reward all merit. Ah! let us support those 
generous legitimate princes, to whom we are about to 
owe unheard-of prosperity. Believe me, the Restora- 
tion feels that it must run a tilt against the Empire ; 
the Bourbons have conquests to make, the conquests of 
peace. You will see their conquests 1 ” 

“ Monsieur will perhaps do us the honor to be present 
at our ball ? ” said Madame Cesar. 

“To pass an evening with 3’ou, Madame, I would 
sacrifice the making of millions.” 

“ He certainlj" does chatter,” said C^sar to his uncle. 

While the declining glorj" of perfumery was about to 
send forth its setting raj^s, a star was rising with feeble 
light upon the commercial horizon. Anselme Popinot 
was lajdng the corner-stone of his fortune in the Rue 
des Cinq-Diamants. This narrow little street, where 
loaded wagons can scarcely pass each other, runs from 
the Rue des Lombards at one end, to the Rue Aubr}'- 
le-Boucher at the other, entering the latter opposite to 
the Rue Quincampoix, that famous thoroughfare of old 
Paris where French history" has so often been enacted. 
In spite of this disadvantage, the congregation of drug- 
gists in that neighborhood made Popinot’s choice of the 
little street a good one. The house, which stands second 
from the Rue des Lombards, was so dark that except at 
certain seasons it was necessar}’ to use lights in open 
da^". The embr^^o merchant had taken possession, the 
preceding evening, of the dingj' and disgusting premises. 


168 


CSsar Birotteau, 


His predecessor, who sold molasses and coarse sugars, 
had left the stains of his dirty business upon the walls, 
in the court, in the store-rooms. Imagine a large and 
spacious shop, with great iron-bound doors, painted a 
dragon-green, strengthened with long iron bars held 
on by nails whose heads looked like mushrooms, and 
covered with an iron trellis- work, which swelled out at 
the bottom after the fashion of the bakers’-shops in 
former days ; the floor paved with large white stones, 
most of them broken, the walls 3’ellow, and as bare as 
those of a guard-room. Next to the shop came the 
back- shop, and two other rooms lighted from the street, 
in which Popinot proposed to put his office, his books, 
and his own workroom. Above these rooms were three 
narrow little chambers pushed up against the part}"- 
wall, with an outlook into the court ; here he intended 
to dwell. The three rooms were dilapidated, and had 
no view but that of the court, which was dark, irregular, 
and surrounded b}" high walls, to which perpetual damp- 
ness, even in dry weather, gave the look of being daubed 
with fresh plaster. Between the stones of this court was 
a filthy and stinking black substance, left b3^ the sugars 
and the molasses that once occupied it. Only one of 
the bedrooms had a chimney, all the walls were with- 
out paper, and the floors were tiled with brick. 

Since early morning Gaudissart and Popinot, helped 
b}" a journeyman whose services the commercial travel- 
ler had invoked, were bus% employed in stretching a 
fifteen-sous paper on the walls of these horrible rooms, 
the workman pasting the lengths. A collegian’s mat- 
tress on a bedstead of red wood, a shabby night- stand, 
an old-fashioned bureau, one table, two armchairs, and 


CSsar Birotteau, 


169 


six common chairs, the gift of Popinot’s uncle the 
judge, made up the furniture. Gaudissart had decked 
the chimne3'-piece with a frame in which was a mirror 
much defaced, and bought at a bargain. Towards eight 
o’clock in the evening the two friends, seated before the 
fireplace where a fagot of wood was blazing, were about 
to attack the remains of their breakfast. 

“Down with the cold mutton!” cried Gaudissart, 
suddenly, “ it is not worthj’ of such a housewarming.” 

“ But,” said Popinot, showing his solitary coin of 
twenty francs, which he was keeping to pay for the 
prospectus, “I — ” 

“I — ” cried Gaudissart, sticking a forty-franc piece 
in his own e^^e. 

A knock resounded through the court, naturally 
empty and echoing of a Sunday, when the workpeople 
were awa}^ from it and the laboratories empty. 

“ Here comes the faithful slave of the Rue de la 
Poterie I ” cried the illustrious Gaudissart. 

Sure enough, a waiter entered, followed by two scul- 
lions bearing in three baskets a dinner, and six bottles 
of wine selected with discernment. 

“ How shall we ever eat it all up? ” said Popinot. 

“ The man of letters ! ” cried Gaudissart, “ don’t for 
get him. Finot loves the pomps and the vanities ; he 
is coming, the innocent boy, armed with a dishevelled 
prospectus — the word is pat, hein ? Prospectuses are 
alwaj's thirsty. We must water the seed if we want 
flowers. Depart, slaves ! ” he added, with a gorgeous 
air, “there is gold for 3"ou.” 

He gave them ten sous with a gesture worthy of 
Napoleon, his idol. 


170 


Cisar Birotteau. 


“Thank you, Monsieur Gaudissart,” said the scul- 
lions, better pleased with the jest than with the mone}^ 

“As for you, my son,” he said to the waiter, who 
stayed to serve the dinner, “below is a porter’s wife; 
she lives in a lair where she sometimes cooks, as in 
other days Nausicaa washed, for pure amusement. 
Find her, implore her goodness ; interest her, young 
man, in the warmth of these dishes. Tell her she shall 
be blessed, and above all, respected, most respected, 
by Felix Gaudissart, son of Jean-Fran^ois Gaudissart, 
grandson of all the Gaudissarts, vile proletaries of 
ancient birth, his forefathers. March ! and mind that 
everything is hot, or I ’ll deal retributive justice by a 
rap on your knuckles.” 

Another knock sounded. 

“ Here comes the pungent Andoche ! ” shouted 
Gaudissart. 

A stout, chubby-faced fellow of medium height, from 
head to foot the evident son of a hat-maker, with 
round features whose shrewdness was hidden under a 
restrained and subdued manner, suddenly appeared. 
His face, which was melancholy, like that of a man 
weary of poverty, lighted up hilariously when he caught 
sight of the table, and the bottles swathed in significant 
napkins. At Gaudissart’s shout, his pale-blue eyes 
sparkled, his big head, hollowed like that of a Kalmnc 
Tartar, bobbed from right to left, and he bowed to Popi- 
iiot with a queer manner, which meant neither servility 
nor respect, but was rather that of a man who feels he 
is not in his right place and will make no concessions. 
He was just beginning to find out that he possessed no 
literar^' talent whatever ; he meant to stay in the pro- 


CS%ar Birotteau, 


171 


fession, however, by living upon the brains of others, 
and getting astride the shoulders of those more able 
than himself, making his profit there instead of strug- 
gling any longer at his own ill-paid work. At the pres- 
ent moment he had drunk to the dregs the humiliation 
of applications and appeals which constantly failed, and 
he was now, like people in the higher walks of finance, 
about to change his tone and become insolent, advisedly. 
But he needed a small sum in hand on which to start, 
and Gaudissart gave him a share in the present affair 
of ushering into the world the oil of Popinot. 

“ You are to negotiate on his account with the news- 
papers. But don’t plaj’ double ; if you do I ’ll fight you 
to the death. Give him his money’s worth.” 

Popinot gazed at “the author” wdth much uneasiness. 
People who are purely commercial look upon an author 
with mingled sentiments of fear, compassion, and curi- 
osity. Though Popinot had been well brought up, the 
habits of his relations, their ideas, and the obfuscating 
effect of a shop and a counting-room, had lowered his 
intelligence by bending it to the use and wont of his 
calling, — a phenomenon which may often be seen if we 
observe the transformations which take place in a hun- 
dred comrades, when ten years supervene between the 
time when they leave college or a public school, to all 
intents and purposes alike, and the period when they 
meet again after contact with the world. Andoche 
accepted Popinot’s perturbation as a compliment. 

“ Now then, before dinner, let ’s get to the bottom of 
the prospectus ; then we can drink without an after- 
thought,” said Gaudissart. “ After dinner one reads 
askew; the tongue digests.” 


172 


CSsar Birotteau, 


“Monsieur,” said Popinot, “a prospectus is often 
a fortune.” 

“And for plebeians like myself,” said Andoche, 
“ fortune is nothing more than a prospectus.” 

“ Ha, very good ! ” cried Gaudissart, “ that rogue of 
a Finot has the wit of the forty Academicians.” 

Of a hundred Academicians,” said Popinot, bewil- 
dered by these ideas. 

The impatient Gaudissart seized the manuscript and 
began to read in a loud voice, with much emphasis, 
“Cephalic Oil.” 

“ I should prefer Oil Cesarienne” said Popinot. 

“My friend,” said Gaudissart, “3^ou don’t know the 
provincials : there ’s a surgical operation called b}’ that 
name, and the^^ are such stupids that the^" ’ll think 3"Our 
oil is meant to facilitate childbirth. To drag them 
back from that to hair is beyond even my powers of 
persuasion.” 

“Without wishing to defend m3' term,” said the author, 
“I must ask 3011 to observe that ‘ Cephalic Oil’ means 
oil for the head, and sums up 3^our ideas in one word.” 

“ Well, let us see,” said Popinot impatiently. 

Here follows the prospectus ; the same which the 
trade receives, b3' the thousand, to the present day 
piece justificative) : — 

GOLD MEDAL. EXPOSITION OP 1819. 

CEPHALIC OIL. 

Patents for Invention and Improvements. 

“ No cosmetic can make the hair grow, and no chemical 
preparation can dye it without peril to the seat of intelli- 
gence. Science has recently made known the fact that hair 


CSsar Birotteau, 


173 


is a dead substance, and that no agent can prevent it from 
falling off or whitening. To prevent Baldness and Dan- 
druff, it is necessary to protect the bulb from which the hair 
issues from all deteriorating atmospheric influences, and to 
maintain the temperature of the head at its right medium. 
Cephalic Oil, based upon principles laid down by the 
Academy of Sciences, produces this important result, sought 
by the ancients, — the Greeks, the Romans, and all Northern 
nations, — to whom the preservation of the hair was peculiarly 
precious. Certain scientific researches have demonstrated 
that nobles, formerly distinguished for the length of their 
hair, used no other remedy than this ; their method of pre- 
paration, which had been lost in the lapse of ages, has been 
intelligently re-discovered by A. Popinot, the inventor of 
Cephalic Oil. 

“ To "preserve^ rather than provoke a useless and injurious 
stimulation of the integument which contains the bulbs, is 
the mission of Cephalic Oil. In short, this oil, which 
counteracts the exfoliation of pellicular atoms, which ex- 
hales a soothing perfume, and arrests, by means of the sub- 
stances of which it is composed (among them more especially 
the oil of nuts), the action of the outer air upon the scalp, 
also prevents influenzas, colds in the head, and other painful 
cephalic affections, by maintaining the normal temperature 
of the cranium. Consequently, the bulbs, which contain 
the generating fluids, are neither chilled by cold nor parched 
by heat. The hair of the head, that magnificent product, 
priceless alike to man and woman, will be preserved even to 
advanced age, in all the brilliancy and lustre which bestow 
their charm upon the heads of infancy, by those who make 
use of CEPHALIC OIL. 

“ Directions for use are furnished with each bottle, 
and serve as a wrapper. 

“Method of using Cephalic Oil. — It is quite use- 
less to oil the hair; this is not only a vulgar and foolish 
prejudice, but an untidy habit, for the reason that all 


174 


CSsar Birotteau, 


cosmetics leave their trace. It suffices to wet a little sponge 
in the oil, and after parting the hair with the comb, to apply 
it at the roots in such a manner that the whole skin of the 
head may be enabled to imbibe it, after the scalp has received 
a preliminary cleansing with brush and comb. 

“ The oil is sold in bottles bearing the signature of the 
inventor, to prevent counterfeits. Price, Three Francs. 
A. POPINOT, Rue des Cinq-Diamants, quartier des Lom- 
bards, Paris. 

“ It is requested that all letters he prepaid. 

“ N. B. The house of A. Popinot supplies all oils and 
essences appertaining to druggists : lavender, oil of almonds, 
sweet and bitter, orange oil, cocoa-nut oil, castor oil, and 
others.” 

“ My dear friend,” said the illustrious Gaudissart 
to Finot, “it is admirably written. Thunder and 
lightning! we are in the upper regions of science. 
We shirk nothing ; we go straight to the point. That’s 
useful literature ; I congratulate you.” 

‘ ‘ A noble prospectus 1 ” cried Popinot, enthusiasti- 
cally. 

“A prospectus which slab’s Macassar at the first 
word,” continued Gaudissart, rising with a magisterial 
air to deliver the following speech, which he divided by 
gestures and pauses in his best parliamentary manner. 

“ No — hair — can be made — to grow ! Hair can- 
not be dyed without — danger ! Ha I ha ! success is 
there. Modern science is in unison with the customs 
of the ancients. We can deal with young and old 
alike. We can say to the old man, ‘Ha, monsieur! 
the ancients, the Greeks and Romans, knew a thing 
or two, and were not so stupid as some would have 
us believe ; ’ and we can say to the young man, ‘ My 


CSsar Birotteau, 


175 


dear boy, here ’s another discovery due to progress and 
the lights of science. We advance ; what may we not 
obtain from steam and telegraphy, and other things ! 
This oil is based on the scientific treatise of Monsieur 
Vauquelin!’ Suppose we print an extract from Mon- 
sieur Vauquelin’s report to the Academy of Sciences, 
confirming our statement, hein? Famous! Come, 
Finot, sit down ; attack the viands ! Soak up the 
champagne ! let us drink to the success of my young 
friend, here present ! ” 

“ I felt,” said the author modestly, ‘‘that the epoch 
of flims}^ and frivolous prospectuses had gone by ; we 
are entering upon an era of science ; we need an 
academical tone, — a tone of authority, which imposes 
upon the public.” 

“We’ll boil that oil; my feet itch, and m3’ tongue 
too. I’ve got commissions from all the rival hair 
people ; none of them give more than thirt3’ per cent 
discount ; we must manage fort}’ on eveiy hundred re- 
mitted, and I ’ll answer for a hundred thousand bottles 
in six months. I ’ll attack apothecaries, grocers, per- 
fumers ! Give ’em fort}’ per cent, and they ’ll bamboozle 
the public.” 

The three young fellows devoured their dinner like 
lions, and drank like lords to the future success of 
Cephalic Oil. 

“ The oil is getting into my head,” said Finot. 

Gaudissart poured out a series of jokes and puns 
upon hats and heads, and hair and hair-oil, etc. In the 
midst of Homeric laughter a knock resounded, and was 
heard, in spite of an uproar of toasts and reciprocal 
congratulations. 


176 


CSsar Birotteau, 


“ It is my uncle ! ” cried Popinot. ‘‘He has actually 
come to see me.” 

“An uncle!” said Finot, “and we haven't got a 
glass ! ” 

“ The uncle of my friend Popinot is a judge,” said 
Gaudissart to Finot, “ and he is not to be hoaxed ; he 
saved my life. Ha ! when one gets to the pass where 
I was, under the scaffold — Qou-icJc^ and good-by to 
your hair,” — imitating the fatal knife with voice and 
gesture. “One recollects gratefully the virtuous mag- 
istrate who saved the gutter where the champagne flows 
down. Recollect? — I’d recollect him dead-drunk! 
You don’t know what it is, Finot, unless you have stood 
in need of Monsieur Popinot. Huzza! we ought to 
fire a salute — from six pounders, too!” 

The virtuous magistrate was now asking for his 
nephew at the door. Recognizing his voice, Anselme 
went down, candlestick in hand, to light him up. 

“I wish you good evening, gentlemen,” said the 
judge. 

The illustrious Gaudissart bowed profoundly. Finot 
examined the magistrate with a tipsy eye, and thought 
him a bit of a blockhead. 

“You have not much luxury here,” said the judge, 
gravely, looking round the room. “Well, my son, 
if we wish to be something great, we must begin by 
being nothing.” 

“ What profound wisdom ! ” said Gaudissart to Finot. 

“ Text for an article,” said the journalist. 

“Ah! you here, monsieur?” said the judge, recog- 
nizing the commercial traveller; “and what are you 
doing now?” 


C^sar Birotteau, 


177 


“Monsieur, I am contributing to the best of my 
small ability to the success of your dear nephew. We 
have just been stud3nng a prospectus for his oil ; you 
see before 3’ou the author of that prospectus, which 
seems to us the finest essay in the literature of wigs.” 
The judge looked at Finot. “Monsieur,” said Gau- 
dissart, “is Monsieur Andoche Finot, a young man 
distinguished in literature, who does high-class politics 
and the little theatres in the government newspapers, 

• — I may sa^^ a statesman on the high-road to becoming 
an author.” 

Finot pulled Gaudissart by the coat-tails. 

“Well, well, my sons,” said the judge, to whom 
these words explained the aspect of the table, where 
there still remained the tokens of a ver}^ excusable feast. 
“ Anselme,” said the old gentleman to his nephew, 
“ dress \’ourself, and come with me to Monsieur Birot- 
teau’s, where I have a visit to pa}-. You shall sign 
the deed of partnership, which I have carefully exam- 
ined. As you mean to have the manufactory for your 
oil on the grounds in the Faubourg du Temple, I think 
you had better take a formal lease of them. Mon- 
sieur Birotteau might have others in partnership with 
him, and it is better to settle ever3’thing legally at once ; 
then there can be no discussion. These walls seem to 
me very damp, m3’ dear boy ; take up the straw matting 
near 3’our bed.” 

“ Permit me, monsieur,” said Gaudissart, with an 
ingratiating air, ‘ ‘ to explain to you that we have just 
pasted up the paper ourselves, and that’s the — reason 
why — the walls — are not — dr3".” 

“Economy? quite right,” said the judge. 

12 


178 


C4mr Birotteau. 


“ Look here,” said Gaudissart in Finot’s ear, “ mj' 
friend Popinot is a virtuous young man ; he is going 
with his uncle ; let ’s you and I go and finish the evening 
with our cousins.” 

The journalist showed the empty lining of his 
pockets. Popinot saw the gesture, and slipped his 
twenty-franc piece into the palm of the author of the 
prospectus. 

The judge had a coach at the end of the street, in 
which he carried oflT his nephew to the Birotteaus. 


CSsar Birotteau. 


179 


VII. 

PiLLERAULT, MoDsieur and Madame Ragon, and Mon- 
sieur Roguin were playing at boston, and Cesarine was 
embroidering a handkerchief, when the judge and An- 
selme arrived. Roguin, placed opposite to Madame 
Ragon, near whom Cesarine was sitting, noticed the 
pleasure of the young girl when she saw Anselme enter, 
and he made Crottat a sign to observe that she turned 
as rosy as a pomegranate. 

“ This is to be a day of deeds, then? ” said the per- 
fumer, when the greetings were over and the judge told 
him the purpose of the visit. 

Cesar, Anselme, and the judge went up to the per- 
fumer's temporary bedroom on the second floor to 
discuss the lease and the deed of partnership drawn 
up by the magistrate. A lease of eighteen 3'ears was 
agreed upon, so that it might run the same length of 
time as the lease of the shop in the Rue des Cinq- 
Diamants, — an insignificant circumstance apparentl}", 
but one which did Birotteau good service in after days. 
When Cesar and the judge returned to the entresol^ the 
latter, surprised at the general upset of the household, 
and the presence of workmen on a Sunda}^ in the house 
of a man so religious as Birotteau, asked the meaning 
of it, — a question which C^sar had been eagerly 
expecting. 


180 


CS%ar Birotteau. 


“ Though you care very little for the world, mon- 
sieur,” he said, “ you will see no harm in celebrating the 
deliverance of our territory. That, however, is not all. 
We are about to assemble a few friends to commemorate 
my promotion to the order of the Legion of honor.” 

“ Ah ! ” exclaimed the judge, who was not decorated. 

“ Possibl}" I showed m3"self worth3’ of that signal 
and royal favor by my services on the Bench — oh ! 
of commerce, — and b3^ fighting for the Bourbons on 
the steps — ” 

“ True,” said the judge. 

“ — of Saint-Roch on the 13 th Vend^miaire, where 
I was wounded b3" Napoleon. May I not hope that 
3’ou and Madame Popinot will do us the honor of being 
present? ” 

“Willingly,” said the judge. “ If my wife is well 
enough I will bring her.” 

“Xandrot,” said Roguin to his clerk, as they left 
the house, “ give up all thoughts of marr3ing Cesarine ; 
six weeks hence 3’ou will thank me for that advice.” 

“ Why ? ” asked Crottat. 

“My dear fellow, Birotteau is going to spend a 
hundred thousand francs on his ball, and he is involv- 
ing his whole fortune, against my advice, in that specu- 
lation in lands. Six weeks hence he and his family 
won’t have bread to eat. Marr3^ Mademoiselle Lour- 
dois, the daughter of the house-painter. She has three 
hundred thousand francs dot. I threw out that anchor 
to windward for you. If you will pa3" me a hundred 
thousand francs down for m3^ practice, 3^ou may have it 
to-morrow.” 

The splendors of the approaching ball were announced 


C6mr Birotteau, 


181 


by the newspapers to all Europe, and were also made 
known to the world of commerce by rumors to which the 
preparations, carried on night and day, had given rise. 
Some said that C^sar had hired three houses, and that 
he was gilding his salons ; others that the supper would 
furnish dishes invented for the occasion. On one hand 
it was reported that no merchants would be invited, 
the fete being given to the members of the government ; 
on the other hand, Cesar was severely blamed for his 
ambition, and laughed at for his political pretensions : 
some people even went so far as to deny his wound. 
The ball gave rise to more than one intrigue in the 
second arrondissement. The friends of the family were 
easy in their minds, but the demands of mere acquaint- 
ances were enormous. Honors bring sycophants ; and 
there was a goodly number of people whose invitations 
cost them more than one application. The Birotteaus 
were fairly frightened at the number of friends whom 
they did not know the}' had. These eager attentions 
alarmed Madame Birotteau, and day by day her face 
grew sadder as the great solemnity drew near. 

In the first place, as she owned to Cesar, she should 
never learn the right demeanor ; next, she was terrified 
by the innumerable details of such a fete : where should 
she find the plate, the glass-ware, the refreshments, the 
china, the servants? Who would superintend it all? 
She entreated Birotteau to stand at the door of the ap- 
partement and let no one enter but invited guests ; she 
had heard strange stories of people who came to bour- 
geois balls, claiming friends whose names they did not 
know. When, a week before the fateful day, Braschon. 
Grlndot, Lourdois, and Chaffaroux, the builder, assured 


182 


Cisar BirotteaU, 


C^sar positively that the rooms would be ready for the 
famous Sunday of December the 17 th, an amusing 
conference took place, in the evening after dinner, be- 
tween Cesar, his wife, and his daughter, for the purpose 
of making out the list of guests and addressing the in- 
vitations, — which a stationer had sent home that morn- 
ing, printed on pink paper, in flowing English writing, 
and in the formula of commonplace and puerile civility. 

“ Now we mustn’t forget any body,” said Birotteau. 

“ If we forget any one,” said Constance, “ they won’t 
forget it. Madame Derville, who never called before, 
sailed down upon me in all her glory yesterday.” 

“ She is very prett3’,” said Cesarine. “ I liked her.” 

“ And 3"et before her marriage she was even less than 
1 was,” said Constance. “ She did plain sewing in the 
Rue Montmartre ; she made shirts for 3'our father.” 

“ Well, now let us begin the list,” said Birotteau, 
“ with the upper-crust people. Cesarine, write down 
Monsieur le Due and Madame la Duchesse de Lenon- 
court — ” 

“Good heavens, Cesar!” said Constance, “don’t 
send a single invitation to people whom you only know 
as customers. Are you going to invite the Princesse 
de Blamont-Chauvr3', who is more nearl3’^ related to 
your godmother, the late Marquise d’Uxelles, than the 
Due de Lenoncourt? You surely don’t mean to invjte 
the two Messieurs de Vandenesse, Monsieur de Marsay, 
Monsieur de Ronquerolles, Monsieur d’Aiglemont, in 
short, all 3^our customers? You are mad ; 3’our honors 
have turned your head I ” 

“Well, but there’s Monsieur le Comte de Fontaine 
and his family, hein? — the one that always went by 


CSsar Birotteau, 


188 


the name of Grand- Jacques, — and the Young Scamp, 
who was the Marquis de Montauran, and Monsieur de 
la Billardiere, who was called the Nantais at ‘The 
Queen of Roses’ before the 13th Vendemiaire. In 
those da 3 's it was all hand-shaking, and ‘ Birotteau, 
take courage ; let yourself be killed, like us, for the 
good cause.’ Why, we are all comrades in conspiracy.” 

“ Very good, put them down,” said Constance. “ If 
Monsieur de la Billardiere comes he will want somebody 
to speak to.” 

“ Cesarine, write,” said Birotteau. “ Prmo, Mon- 
sieur the prefect of the Seine ; he ’ll come or he won’t 
come, but any way he commands the municipality, — 
honor to whom honor is due. Monsieur de la Billardiere 
and his son, the maj or. Put the number of the guests 
after their names. My colleague, Monsieur Granet, 
deputj’-maj’or, and his wife. She is very ugly, but never 
mind, we can’t dispense with her. Monsieur Curel, the 
jeweller, colonel of the National Guard, his wife, and 
two daughters. Those are what I call the authorities. 
Now come the big wigs, — Monsieur le Comte and 
Madame la Comtesse de Fontaine, and their daughter. 
Mademoiselle Emilie de Fontaine.” 

“ An insolent girl^ who makes me leave the shop and 
speak to her at the door of the carriage, no matter what 
the weather is,” said Madame Cesar. “If she comes, 
it will only be to ridicule us.” 

“ Then she ’ll be sure to come,” said C^sar, bent on 
getting everybody. “Go on, Cesarine. Monsieur le 
Comte and Madame la Comtesse de Grandville, my 
landlord, — the longest head at the royal court, so Der- 
ville says. Ah 9 a ! Monsieur de la Billardiere is to 


184 


Cisar Birotteau. 


present me as a chevalier to-morrow to Monsieur le 
Comte de Lacepede himself, high chancellor of the 
Legion of honor. It is onlj’^ proper that I should send 
him an invitation for the ball, and also to the dinner. 
Monsieur Vauquelin ; put him down for ball and dinner 
both, Cesarine. And (so as not to forget them) put 
down all the Chiffrevilles and the Protez ; Monsieur and 
Madame Popinot, judge of the Lower Court of the 
Seine ; Monsieur and Madame Thirion, gentleman-usher 
of the bedchamber to the king, friends of Ragon, and 
their daughter, who, they tell me, is to marry the son 
of Monsieur Camusot by his first wife.” 

“ C4sar, don’t forget that little Horace Bianchon, the 
nephew of Monsieur Popinot, and cousin of Anselme,” 
said Constance. 

“ Whew ! Cesarine has written a four after the 
name of Popinot. Monsieur and Madame Rabourdin, 
one of the under-secretaries in Monsieur de la Billar- 
diere’s division ; Monsieur Cochin, same division, his 
wife and son, sleeping-partners of Matifat, and Mon- 
sieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle Matifat themselves.” 

“The Matifats,” said Cesarine, “ are fishing for in- 
vitations for Monsieur and Madame Colleville, and 
Monsieur and Madame Thuillier, friends of theirs.” 

“We will see about that,” said Cesar. “ Put down 
my broker. Monsieur and Madame Jules Desmarets,” 

“ She will be the loveliest woman in the room,” said 
Cesarine. “ I like her — oh ! better than any one else.” 

“ Derville and his wife.” 

“Put down Monsieur and Madame Coquelin, the 
successors to my uncle Pillerault,” said Constance. 
“ They are so sure of an invitation that the poor little 


CSsar Birotteau, 


185 


woman has ordered my dressmaker to make her a 
superb ball-dress, a skirt of white satin, and a tulle 
robe with succory flowers embroidered all over it. A 
little more and she would have ordered a court-dress 
of gold brocade. If 3’ou leave them out we shall make 
bitter enemies.” 

“Put them down, Cesarine; all honor to com- 
merce, for we belong to it! Monsieur and Madame 
Roguin.” 

“ Mamma, Madame Roguin will wear her diamond 
fillet and all her other diamonds, and her dress trimmed 
with Mechlin.” 

“Monsieur and Madame Lebas,” said Cesar; “also 
Monsieur le president of the Court of Commerce, — I 
forgot him among the authorities, — his wife, and two 
daughters ; Monsieur and Madame Lourdois and their 
daughter; Monsieur Claparon, banker; Monsieur du 
Tillet ; Monsieur Grindot ; Monsieur Molineux ; Piller- 
ault and his landlord ; Monsieur and Madame Camusot, 
the rich silk-merchants, and all their children, the one 
at the Ecole Poly technique, and the lawyer ; he is to be 
made a judge because of his marriage to Mademoiselle 
Thirion.” 

“ A provincial judge,” remarked Constance. 

“ Monsieur Cardot, father-in-law of Camusot, and all 
the Cardot children. Bless me, and the Guillaumes, 
Rue du Colombier, the father-in-law of Lebas — old 
people, but they ’ll sit in a corner ; Alexandre Crottat ; 
Celestin — ” 

“ Papa, don’t forget Monsieur Andoche Finot and 
Monsieur Gaudissart, two young men who are very 
useful to Monsieur Anselme.” 


186 


CSsar Birotteau, 


“Gaudissart? be was once in the hands of justice. 
But never mind, he is going to travel for our oil and 
starts in a few days ; put him down. As to the Sieur 
Andoche Finot, what is he to us ? ” 

“ Monsieur Anselme says he will be a great man ; he 
has a mind like Voltaire.” 

“An author? all atheists.” 

“ Let ’s put him down, papa ; we want more dancers. 
Besides, he wrote the beautiful prospectus for the oil.” 

“ He believes in my oil? ” said Cesar, “ then put him 
down, dear child.” 

“ I have put down all my proteges,” said Cesarine. 

“ Put Monsieur Mitral, my bailiff ; Monsieur Haudiy, 
our doctor, as a matter of form, — he won’t come.” 

“Yes, he will, for his game of cards.” 

“Now, Cesar, I do hope you mean to invite the 
Abbe Loraux to the dinner,” said Constance. 

“ I have already written to him,” said C4sar. 

“Oh ! and don’t forget the sister-in-law of Monsieur 
Lebas, Madame Augustine Sommervieux,” said Cesa- 
rine. “ Poor little woman, she is so delicate ; she is 
dying of grief, so Monsieur Lebas says.” 

“That’s what it is to marry artists!” cried her 
father. “Look! there’s 3 ’our mother asleep,” he 
whispered. “La! la! a verj’ good night to you, 
Madame Cesar — Now, then,” he added, “about 
your mother’s ball-dress ? ” 

“ Yes, papa, it will be all ready. Mamma thinks she 
will wear her china-crape like mine. The dressmaker 
is sure there is no need of trying it on.” 

“ How many people have 3 ’ou got down,” said C4sar 
aloud, seeing that Constance opened her ey-es. 


Cisar Birotteau. 


187 


“ One hundred and nine, with the clerks.” 

“ Where shall we ever put them all?” said Madame 
Birotteau. “But, anyhow, after that Sunday,” she 
added naively, “ there will come a Monday.” 

Nothing can be done simply and naturally by people 
who are stepping from one social level to another. Not 
a soul — not Madame Birotteau, nor Cesar himself — 
was allowed to put foot into the new appartement 
on the first floor. Cesar had promised Raguet, the 
shop'boy, a new suit of clothes for the day of the ball, 
if he^ mounted guard faithfully and let no one enter. 
Birotteau, like the Emperor Napoleon at Compiegne, 
when the chMeau was re-decorated for his marriage 
with Maria Louisa of Austria, was determined to see 
nothing piecemeal ; he wished to enjoy the surprise of 
seeing it as a whole. Thus the two antagonists met 
once more, all unknown to themselves, not on the 
field of battle, but on the peaceful ground of bourgeois 
vanity. It was arranged that Monsieur Grindot was 
to take Cesar b}" the hand and show him the apparte- 
ment when finished, — just as a guide shows a gallery 
to a sight-seer. Every member of the family had pro- 
vided his, or her, private “ surprise.” Cesarine, dear 
child, had spent all her little hoard, a hundred louis, 
on buying books for her father. Monsieur Grindot 
confided to her one morning that there were two book- 
cases in Cesar’s room, which enclosed an alcove, — an 
architectural surprise to her father. Cesarine flung all 
her girlish savings upon the counter of a bookseller’s 
shop, and obtained in return, Bossuet, Racine, Voltaire, 
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Montesquieu, Moliere, Buffon, 


188 


CSsar Birotteau. 


F^nelon, Delille, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, La Fon- 
taine, Corneille, Pascal, La Harpe, — in short, the 
whole array of matter-of-course libraries to be found 
everywhere, and which assuredly her father would 
neA^er read. A terrible bill for binding was in the 
background. The celebrated and dilatory binder, 
Thouvenin, had promised to deliver the volumes at 
twelve o’clock on the morning of the 16th. Cesar- 
ine confided her anxiety to her uncle Pillerault, and 
he had promised to pay the bill. The “ surprise” of 
C^sar to his wife was the gown of cherry-colored velvet, 
trimmed with lace, of which he spoke to his accomplice, 
Cesarine. The “ surprise” of Madame Birotteau to the 
new chevalier was a pair of gold shoe-buckles, and a 
diamond pin. For the whole famih' there was the sur- 
prise of the new appartement, and, a fortnight later, the 
still greater surprise of the bills when they came in. 

C^sar carefully weighed the question as to which in- 
vitations should be given in person, and which should 
be sent by Raguct. He ordered a coach and took his 
wife — much disfigured b}" a bonnet with feathers, and 
his last gift, a shawl which she had coveted for fifteen 
years — on a round of civilities. In their best array, 
these worthy people paid twenty-two visits in the course 
of one morning. 

Cesar excused his wife from the labor and difficulty of 
preparing at home the various viands demanded by the 
splendor of the entertainment. A diplomatic treat^^ was 
arranged between the famous Chevet and the perfumer. 
Chevet furnished superb silver plate (which brought 
him an income equal to that of land) ; he supplied the 
dinner, the wines, and the waiters, under the orders of 


CSsar Birotteau. 


189 


a major-domo of dignified aspect, who was responsible 
for the proper management of everj^thing. Chevet ex- 
acted that the kitchen, and the dining-room on the en- 
tresol^ should be given up to him as headquarters ; a 
dinner for twenty people was to be served at six o’clock, 
a superb supper at one in the morning. Birotteau 
arranged with the caf^ Foy for ices in the shape of 
fruits, to be served in pretty saucers, with gilt spoons, 
on silver trays. Tanrade, another illustrious purveyor, 
furnished the refreshments. 

“ Don’t be worried,” said Cesar to his wife, observ- 
ing her uneasiness on the day before the great event, 
“Chevet, Tanrade, and the caf(S Foy will occupy the 
entresol^ Virginie will take charge of the second floor, 
the shop will be closed ; all we shall have to do is to 
enshrine ourselves on the first floor.” 

At two o’clock, on the 16th, the mayor. Monsieur 
de la Billardiere, came to take Cesar to the Chancellerie 
of the Legion of honor, where he was to be received by 
Monsieur le Comte de Lacepede, and about a dozen 
chevaliers of the order. Tears were in his eyes when 
he met the mayor ; Constance had just given him the 
“ surprise” of the gold buckles and diamond pin. 

“ It is very sweet to be so loved,” he said, getting 
into the coach in presence of the assembled clerks, and 
C^sarine, and Constance. They, one and all, gazed at 
Cesar, attired in black silk knee-breeches, silk stock- 
ings, and the new bottle-blue coat, on which was about 
to gleam the ribbon that, according to Molineux, was 
dyed in blood. When Cesar came home to dinner, he 
was pale with joy ; he looked at his cross in all the 
mirrors, for in the first moments of exultation he was 


190 


CSsar Birotteau, 


not satisfied with the ribbon, — he wore the cross, and 
was glorious without false shame. 

“ wife,” he said, “ Monsieur the high chancellor 
Is a charming man. On a hint from La Billardiere he 
accepted my invitation. He is coming with Monsieur 
Vauquelin. Monsieur de Lacepede is a great man, — 
yes, as great as Monsieur Vauquelin ; he has continued 
the work of Buffon in forty volumes ; he is an author, 
peer of France ! Don’t forget to address him as, 
Your Excellence, or. Monsieur le comte.” 

“ Do eat something,” said his wife. “ Your father is 
worse than a child,” added Constance to Cesarine. 

“ How well it looks in your button-hole,” said 
Cesarine. “When we walk out together, won’t they 
present arms?” 

“Yes, wherever there are sentries they will present 
arms.” 

Just at this moment Grindot was coming downstairs 
with Braschon. It had been arranged that after dinner, 
monsieur, madame, and mademoiselle were to enjoy a 
first sight of the new appartement ; Braschon’s foreman 
was now nailing up the last brackets, and three men 
were lighting the rooms. 

“ It takes a hundred and twenty wax-candles,” said 
Braschon. 

“ A bill of two hundred francs at Trudon’s,” said 
Madame Cesar, whose murmurs were checked by a 
glance from the chevalier Birotteau. 

“ Your ball will be magnificent, Monsieur le cheva- 
lier,” said Braschon. 

Birotteau whispered to himself, “Flatterers already! 
The Abbe Loraux urged me not to fall into that net, 


CSsar Birotteau, 


191 


but to keep myself humble. I shall tiy to remember 
m3’ origin.” 

Cesar did not perceive the meaning of the rich up- 
holsterer’s speech. Braschon made a dozen useless 
attempts to get invitations for himself, his wife, daugh- 
ter, mother-in-law, and aunt. He called the perfumer 
Monsieur le chevalier to the door-wa}", and then he 
departed his enem}^ 

The rehearsal began. Cesar, his wife, and C^sarine 
went out b}’ the shop-door and re-entered the house from 
the street. The entrance had been remodelled in the 
grand st3’le, with double doors, divided into square 
panels, in the centre of which were architectural orna- 
ments in cast-iron, painted. This style of door, since 
become common in Paris, was then a novelt3’. At the 
further end of the vestibule the staircase went up in 
two straight flights, and between them was the space 
which had given Cesar some uneasiness, and which was 
now converted into a species of box, where it was 
possible to seat an old woman. The vestibule, paved 
in black and white marble, with its walls painted to re- 
semble marble, was lighted by an antique lamp with 
four jets. The architect had combined richness with 
simplicit}’. A narrow red carpet relieved the whiteness 
of the stairs, which were polished with pumice-stone. 
The first landing gave an entrance to the entresol; 
the doors to each appartement were of the same charac- 
ter as the street-door, but of flner work by a cabinet- 
maker. 

The family reached the first floor, and entered an 
ante-chamber in excellent taste, spacious, parquetted, 
and simply decorated. Next came a salon, with three 


192 


C 6 %ar Birotteau. 


windows on the street, in white and red, with cornices 
of an elegant design which had nothing gaudy about 
them. On a chimney-piece of white marble supported 
by columns were a number of mantel ornaments chosen 
with taste ; they suggested nothing to ridicule, and were 
in keeping with the other details. A soft harmony pre- 
vailed throughout the room, a harmony which artists 
alone know how to attain by carrying uniformity of de- 
coration into the minutest particulars, — an art of which 
the bourgeois mind is ignorant, though it is much taken 
with its results. A glass chandelier, with twenty-four 
wax-candles, brought out the color of the red silk dra- 
peries ; the polished floor had an enticing look, which 
tempted Cesarine to dance. 

“How charming!” she said; “and yet there is 
nothing to seize the e3"e.” 

“Exactly", mademoiselle,” said the architect; “the 
charm comes from the harmony which reigns between 
the wainscots, walls, cornices, and the decorations ; I 
have gilded nothing, the colors are sober, and not 
extravagant in tone.” 

“ It is a science,” said Cesarine. 

A boudoir in green and white led into Cesar’s study. 

“ Here I have put a bed,” said Grindot, opening the 
doors of an alcove cleverly hidden between the two 
bookcases. “If 3^ou or madame should chance tube 
ill, each can have 3'Our own room.” 

“But this bookcase full of books, all bound! Oh! 
mj wife, mj wife ! ” cried Cdsar. 

“ No ; that is C4sarine’s surprise.” 

“ Pardon the feelings of a father,” said Cdsar to the 
ajchitect, as he kissed his daughter. 


CSsar Birotteau, 193 

“ Oh ! of course, of course, monsieur,” said Grindot ; 
“ you are in 3’our own home.” 

Brown was the prevailing color in the stud}’’, relieved 
here and there with green, for a thread of harmony led 
through all the rooms and allied them with one another. 
Thus the color which was the leading tone of one room 
became the relieving tint of another. The engraving 
of Hero and Leander shone on one of the panels of 
Cesar’s study. 

“Ah! thou wilt pay for all this,” said Birotteau, 
looking gayly at it. 

“ That beautiful engraving is given to you by Mon- 
sieur Anselme,” said Cesarine. 

(Anselme, too, had allowed himself a “ surprise.”) 

“ Poor boy ! he has done just as I did for Monsieur 
Vauquelin.” 

The bedroom of Madame Birotteau came next. The 
architect had there displayed a magnificence well calcu- 
lated to please the worth}' people whom ^e was anxious 
to. snare ; he had really kept his word and studied this 
decoration. The room was hung in blue silk, with white 
ornaments ; the furniture was in white cassimere touched 
with blue. On the chimney-piece, of white marble, 
stood a clock representing Venus crouching, on a fine 
block of marble ; a moquette carpet, of Turkish design, 
harmonized this room with that of Cesarine, which 
opened out of it, and was coquettishly hung with Per- 
sian chintz. A piano, a pretty wardrobe with a mirror 
door, a chaste little bed with simple curtains, and all 
the little trifles that young girls like, completed the 
arrangements of the room. The dining-room was be- 
hind the bedroom of Cesar and his wife, and was entered 
IS 


194 


Cimr Birotteau. 


from the staircase ; it was treated in the st3de called 
Louis XIV., with a clock in buhl, buffets of the same, 
inlaid with brass and tortoise-shell ; the walls were hung 
with purple stuff, fastened down by gilt nails. The 
happiness of these three persons is not to be described, 
more especia^ when, re-entering her room, Madame 
Birotteau found upon her bed (where Virginie had just 
carried it, on tiptoe) the robe of cherry-colored velvet, 
with lace trimmings, which was her husband’s “ surprise.” 

“ Monsieur, this appartement will win 3’ou great dis- 
tinction,” said Constance to Grindot. “We shall re- 
ceive a hundred and more persons to-morrow evening, 
and 3"ou will win praises from everj'bodj’.” 

“I shall recommend 3’ou,” said Cesar. “You will 
meet the very heads of commerce, and 3'ou will be bet- 
ter known through that one evening than if you had 
built a hundred houses.” 

Constance, much moved, thought no longer of costs, 
nor of blaming her husband ; and for the following 
reason : That morning, when he brought the engrav- 
ing of Hero and Leander, Anselme Popinot, whom 
Constance credited with much intelligence and prac- 
tical abilit}’, had assured her of the inevitable success 
of Cephalic Oil, for which he was working night and 
day with a furj^ that was almost unprecedented. The 
lover promised that no matter what was the round 
sum of Birotteau’s extravagance, it should be covered 
in six months by Cesar’s share in the profits of the oil. 
After fearing and trembling for nineteen years it was 
so sweet to give herself up to one day of unalloyed hap- 
piness, that Constance promised her daughter not to 
poison her husband’s pleasure by any doubts or dis- 


CSsar Birotteau. 


195 


approval, but to share his happiness heartilj’. When 
therefore, about eleven o’clock, Grindot left them, she 
threw herself into her husband’s arms and said to him 
with tears of joj', “ Cesar! ah, I am beside mj’self ! 
You have made me very happy I ” 

“ Provided it lasts, 3’ou mean?” said C^sar, smiling. 

“ It will last ; I have no more fears,” said Madame 
Birotteau. 

“ That’s right,” said the perfumer ; “you appreciate 
me at last.” 

People who are sufficiently' large-minded to perceive 
their own innate weakness will admit that an orphan 
girl who eighteen years earlier was saleswoman at the 
Petit-Matelot, lie Saint-Louis, and a poor peasant lad 
coming from Touraine to Paris with hob-nailed shoes 
and a cudgel in his hand, might well^ be flattered and 
happy' in giving such a fete for such praiseworthy 
reasons. 

‘ ‘ Bless my^ heart I ” cried C^sar. “ I ’d give a hun- 
dred francs if some one would only come in now and 
pay us a visit.’" 

“ Here is Monsieur I’Abbe Loraux,” said Virginie. 

The abbe entered. He was at that time vicar of 
Saint-Sulpice. The power of the soul was never better 
manifested than in this saintly priest, whose inter- 
course with others left upon the minds of all an indel- 
ible impression. His grim face, so plain as to check 
confidence, had grown sublime through the exercise of 
Catholic virtues ; upon it shone, as it were by antici- 
pation, the celestial glories. Sincerity and candor, in- 
fused into his very blood, gave harmony to his unsightly 
features, and the fires of charity blended the discordant 


196 


Cimr Birotteau. 


lines by a phenomenon, the exact counterpart of that 
which in Claparon had debased and brutalized the hu- 
man being. Faith, Hope, and Charity, the three no- 
blest virtues of humanity, shed their charm among the 
abbe’s wrinkles ; his speech was gentle, slow, and pene- 
trating. His dress was that of the priests of Paris, and 
he allowed himself to wear a brown frock-coat. No 
ambition had ever crept into that pure heart, which the 
angels would some day carry to God in all its pristine 
innocence. It required the gentle firmness of the daugh- 
ter of Louis XVI. to induce him to accept a benefice in 
Paris, humble as it was. As he now entered the room 
he glanced with an uneasy eye at the magnificence before 
him, smiled at the three delighted people, and shook his 
gray head. 

“ My children,” he said, “ my part in life is not to 
share in gayeties, but to visit the afflicted. I came to 
thank Monsieur Cesar for his invitation, and to con- 
gratulate you. I shall come to only one fete here, — 
the marriage of this dear child.” 

After a short visit the abbe went away without see- 
ing the various apartments, which the perfumer and his 
wife dared not show him. This solemn apparition 
threw a few drops of cold water into the boiling delight 
of Cesar’s heart. Each of the party slept amid their 
new luxury, taking possession of the good things and 
the pretty things they had severally wished for. C4sa- 
rine undressed her mother before a toilet-table of white 
marble with a long mirror. Cesar had given himself a 
few superfluities, and longed to make use of them at 
once : and they all went to sleep thinking of the joys 
of the morrow. 


CSsar Birotteau, 


197 


On that morrow C^sarine and her mother, having been 
to Mass, and having read their vespers, dressed about 
four o’clock in the afternoon, after resigning the entresol 
to the secular arm of Che vet and his people. No attire 
ever suited Madame Cesar better than this cherry- 
colored velvet dress with lace trimmings, and short 
sleeves made with jocke3’s : her beautiful arms, still fresh 
and youthful, her bosom, sparklingly white, her throat 
and shoulders of a lovely shape, were all heightened in 
effect b^’ the rich material and the resplendent color. 
The naive delight which ever^' woman feels when she 
sees herself in the plenitude of her power gave an inex- 
pressible sweetness to the Grecian profile of this charm- 
ing woman, whose beaut}" had all the delicacy of a 
cameo. Cesarine, dressed in white crape, wore a wreath 
of white roses, a rose at her waist, and a scarf chastely 
covering her shoulders and bust: Popinot was beside 
himself. 

“ These people crush us,” said Madame Roguin to 
her husband as the}’ went through the appartement. 

The notary’s wife was furious at appearing less 
beautiful than Madame C^sar ; for every woman 
knows how to judge the superiority or the inferiority 
of a rival. 

“Bah!” whispered Roguin to his wife, “it won’t 
last long ; you will soon bespatter her when you meet 
her a-foot in the streets, ruined.” 

Vauquelin showed perfect tact ; he came with Mon- 
sieur de Lac4pede, his colleague of the Institute, who 
had called to fetch him in a carriage. On beholding 
the resplendent mistress of the fete they both launched 
into scientific compliments. 


198 


Cimr Birotteau, 


“Ah, madame, you possess a secret of which science 
is ignorant,” said the chemist, “ the recipe for remain- 
ing 3'Oung and beautiful.” 

“ You are, as I ma^^ say, partly at home here, Mon- 
sieur I’academicien,” said Birotteau. “Yes, Monsieur 
le comte,” he added, turning to the high chancellor of the 
Legion of honor, “ I owe m}^ fortune to Monsieur Vau- 
quelin. I have the honor to present to 3^our lordship 
Monsieur le president of the Court of Commerce. This 
is Monsieur le Comte de Lac^pede, peer of France,” he 
said to Joseph Lebas, who accompanied the president. 

The guests were punctual. The dinner, like all com- 
mercial dinners, was extremely gay, full of good humor, 
and enlivened by the rough jests which always raise a 
laugh. The excellence of the dishes and the goodness 
of the wines were fully appreciated. It was half-past 
nine o’clock when the company returned to the salons 
to take their coffee. A few hackne3^-coaches had alread3^ 
brought the first impatient dancers. An hour later the 
rooms were full, and the ball took the character of a 
rout. Monsieur de Lacepede and Monsieur Vauquelin 
went away, to the great grief of Cesar, who followed 
them to the staircase, vainly entreating them to remain. 
Me succeeded, however, in keeping Monsieur Popinot 
the judge, and Monsieur de la Billardiere. With the 
exception of three women who severally represented the 
aristocrac3% finance, and governmerit circles, — namely. 
Mademoiselle de Fontaine, Madame Jules, and Madame 
Rabourdin, whose beaut3’, dress, and manners were 
shaqDly defined in this assemblage, — all the other wo- 
men wore heavy, over-loaded dresses, and offered to 
the eye that anomalous air of richness which gives to 


CSsar Birotteau, 


199 


the bourgeois masses their vulgar aspect, made cruelly 
apparent on this occasion by the airy grace of the three 
other women. 

The bourgeoisie of the Rue Saint-Denis displayed 
itself majestically in the plenitude of its native pow- 
ers of jocose silliness. It was a fair specimen of that 
middle class which dresses its children like lancers or 
national guards, bu^’s the “ Victoires et Conquetes,” the 
“ Soldat-laboureur,” admires the “ Convoi du Pauvre,” 
delights in mounting guard, goes on Sunday to its own 
country-house, is anxious to acquire the distinguished 
air, and dreams of municipal honors, — that middle 
class which is jealous of all and of eveiy one, and yet is 
good, obliging, devoted, feeling, compassionate, ready 
to subscribe for the children of General Foy, or for the 
Greeks, whose piracies it knows nothing about, or the 
Exiles until none remained ; duped through its virtues 
and scouted for its defects by a social class that is not 
worthy of it, for it has a heart precisely because it is 
ignorant of social conventions, — that virtuous middle- 
class which brings up ingenuous daughters to an honor- 
able toil, giving them sterling qualities which diminish 
as soon as they are brought in contact with the superior 
world of social life ; girls without mind, among whom 
the worthy Chrysale would have chosen his wife, — 
in short, a middle-class admirably represented by the 
Matifats, druggists in the Rue des Lombards, whose 
firm had supplied “The Queen of Roses” for more 
than sixty years. 

Madame Matifat, wishing to give herself a dignified 
air, danced in a turban and a heavy robe of scarlet 
shot with gold threads, — a toilet which harmonized well 


200 


CSsar Birotteau, 


with a self-important manner, a Roman nose, and the 
splendors of a crimson complexion. Monsieur Matifat, 
superb at a review of the National Guard, where his 
protuberant paunch could be distinguished at fifty 
paces, and upon which glittered a gold chain and a 
bunch of trinkets, was under the yoke of this Catherine 
II. of commerce. Short and fat, harnessed with spec- 
tacles and a shirt- collar worn above his ears, he was 
chiefly distinguished for his bass voice and the rich- 
ness of his vocabulary. He never said CorneiUe, but 
“the sublime Corneille;” Racine was “the gentle 
Racine;” Voltaire, “Oh! Voltaire, second in every- 
thing, with more wit than genius, but nevertheless a 
man of genius;” Rousseau, “a gloomy mind, a man 
full of pride, who hanged himself.” He related in his 
prosy way vulgar anecdotes of Piron, a poet who 
passes for a prodigy among the bourgeoisie. Mati- 
fat, a passionate lover of the stage, had a slight leaning 
to obscenit3\ It was even said that, in imitation of 
Cadot and the rich Camusot, he kept a mistress. Some- 
times Madame Matifat, seeing him about to relate some 
questionable anecdote, would hasten to interrupt him 
by screaming out: “Take care what you are saying, 
old man ! ” She called him habitually her “ old man.” 
This voluminous queen of drugs caused Mademoiselle 
de Fontaine to lose her aristocratic countenance, for 
the impertinent girl could not help laughing as she 
overheard her sa3fing to her husband : ‘ ‘ Don’t fling 
yourself upon the ices, old man, it is bad style.” 

It is more difficult to explain the nature of the differ- 
ence between the great world and the bourgeoisie than 
it is for the bourgeoisie to obliterate it. These 


CSsar Birotteau, 


201 


women, embarrassed by their fine clothes and very con- 
scious of them, displayed a naive pleasure which proved 
that a ball was a rarity in their busy lives ; while the 
three women, who each represented a sphere in the 
great world, were then exactly what they would be on 
the morrow. They had no appearance of having dressed 
purposely for the ball, they paid no heed to the splendor 
of their jewels, nor to the effect which they themselves 
produced ; all had been arranged when thej’ stood before 
their mirrors and put the last touches to their toilets. 
Their faces showed no excitement or excessive interest, 
and they danced with the grace and ease which unknown 
genius has given to certain statues of antiquity. 

The others, on the contrary, stamped with the mark 
of toil, retained their vulgar attitudes, and amused 
themselves too heartilj" ; their eyes were full of incon- 
siderate curiosity ; their voices ranged above the low 
murmur which gives inimitable piquancy to the con- 
versations of a ball-room ; above all, they had none of 
that composed impertinence which contains the germs 
of epigram, nor the tranquil attitude which character- 
izes those who are accustomed to maintain empire over 
themselves. Thus Madame Rabourdin, Madame Jules, 
and Mademoiselle de Fontaine, who had expected much 
amusement from the ball of their perfumer, were de- 
tached from the background of the bourgeoisie about 
them by their soft and easy grace, bj'the exquisite taste 
of their dress and bearing, — just as three leading 
singers at an opera stand out in relief from the stolid 
array of the supernumeraries. They were watched with 
jealous, wondering eyes. Madame Roguin, Constance, 
and C4sarine formed, as it were, a link which united the 


202 


CSsar Birotteau, 


three tj’pes of feminine aristocracy to the commercial 
figures about them. 

There came, as there does at all balls, a moment 
when the animation of the scene, the torrents of light, 
the ga^^ety , the music, the excitement of dancing brought 
on a species of intoxication which puts out of sight these 
gradations in the crescendo of the tutti. The ball was 
beginning to be noisy, and Mademoiselle de Fontaine 
made a movement to retire ; but when she looked about 
for the arm of her venerable Vendeen, Birotteau, his 
wife, and daughter made haste to prevent such a deser- 
tion of the aristocrac}". 

“■ There is a perfume of good taste about this apparte- 
ment which really amazes me,” remarked that imperti- 
nent young woman to the perfumer. ‘ ‘ I congratulate 
you.” 

Birotteau was so intoxicated by compliments that he 
did not comprehend her meaning ; but his wife colored, 
and was at a loss how to reply, 

“ This is a national fete which does you honor,” said 
Camusot. 

“ I have seldom seen such a ball,” said Monsieur de 
la Billardiere, to whom an oflacial falsehood was of no 
consequence. 

Birotteau took all these compliments seriously. * 

“TV hat an enchanting scene! TVhat a fine orches- 
tra ! T\^ill you often give us a ball ? ” said Madame 
Lebas. 

“TVhat a charming appartement! Is this your 
own taste?” said Madame Desmarets. 

Birotteau ventured on a fib, and allowed her to sup- 
pose that he had designed it. 


CSsar Birotteau, 


203 


Cesarine, who was asked, of course, for all the 
dances, understood very well Anselme’s delicacy in 
that matter. 

“ If I thought only of my own wishes,’’ he had whis- 
pered as they left the dinner- table, “ I should beg you 
to grant me the favor of a quadrille ; but my happiness 
would be too costly to our mutual self-love.” 

Cesarine, who thought all men walked ungracefully 
if they stood straight on their legs, was resolved to 
open the ball with Popinot. Popinot, emboldened by 
his aunt, who told him to dare all, ventured to tell his 
love to the charming girl, during the pauses of the 
quadrille, using, however, the roundabout terms of a 
timid lover. 

“My fortune depends on you, mademoiselle.” 

“ And how? ” 

“ There is but one hope that can enable me to make 
it.” 

“ Then hope.” 

“Do 3’ou know what 3’ou have said to me in those 
two words?” murmured Popinot. 

“Hope for fortune,” said Cesarine, with an arch 
smile. 

“Gaudissart! Gaudissart!” exclaimed Anselme, 
when the quadrille was over, pressing the arm of his 
friend with herculean force. “Succeed, or I’ll blow 
my brains out ! Success, and I shall marry Cesarine ! 
she has told me so : see how lovely she is ! ” 

“Yes, she is prettily tricked out,” said Gaudissart, 
“ and rich. We ’ll fr^^ her in oil.” 

The good understanding between Mademoiselle Lour- 
dois and Alexandre Crottat, the promised successor to 


204 


Cisar Birotteau. 


Roguin, was noticed by Madame Birotteau, who could 
not give up without a pang the hope of seeing her 
daughter the wife of a notar}’^ of Paris. 

Uncle Pillerault, who had exchanged bows with little 
Molineux, seated himself in an armchair near the book- 
shelves. He looked at the card-players, listened to the 
conversations, and went to the doorway every now and 
then to watch the oscillating bouquet of flowers formed 
bj'the circling heads of the dancers in the mouUnet, 
The expression of his face was that of a true philosopher. 
The men were dreadful, — all, that is, except du Tillet, 
who had acquired the manners of the great world, little 
La Billardiere, a budding fashionable. Monsieur Desma- 
rets, and the official personages. But among all the 
faces, more or less comical, from which the assemblage 
took its character, there was one that was particularly 
washed-out, like a five-franc piece of the Republic, and 
whose owner’s apparel rendered him a curiosity. We 
guess at once the little tyrant of the Cour Batave, ar- 
rayed with linen yellowed by lying by in a cupboard, and 
exhibiting to the eye a shirt-frill of lace that had been 
an heirloom, fastened with a bluish cameo set as a pin ; 
he wore short black-silk breeches which revealed the 
skinny legs on which he boldly stood. C^sar showed 
him, triumph anti}’’, the four rooms constructed by the 
architect out of the first floors of the two houses. 

“ Hey ! hey ! Well, it is your affair. Monsieur Birot- 
teau,” said Molineux. “My first floor thus improved 
will be worth more than three thousand francs to me.” 

Birotteau answered with a jest ; but he was pricked 
as if with a pin at the tone in which the little old man 
had pronounced the words. 


CSsar Birotieau. 


205 


“I shall soon have my first floor back again; the 
man will ruin himself.” Such was the real meaning of 
the speech which Molineux delivered like the scratch . 
of a claw. 

The sallow face and vindictive eye of the old man 
struck du Tillet, whose attention had first been attracted 
by a watch-chain from which hung a pound of jingling 
gew-gaws, and by a green coat with a collar whimsi- 
callj" cocked up, which gave the old man the semblance 
of a rattlesnake. The banker approached the usurer 
to find out how and why he had thus bedizened himself. 

“There, monsieur,” said Molineux, planting one 
foot in the boudoir, ‘ ‘ I stand on the property of Mon- 
sieur le Comte de Grandville ; but here,” he added, 
showing the other, “I stand upon my own. I am the 
owner of this house.” 

Molineux was so ready to lend himself to any one 
who would listen to him, and so delighted by du Tillet’s 
attentive manner, that he gave a sketch of his life, re- 
lated his habits and customs, told the improper conduct 
of the Sieur Gendrin, and, finally, explained all his ar- 
rangements with the perfumer, without which, he said, 
the ball could not have been given. 

“ Ah ! Monsieur Cesar let you settle the lease?” said 
du Tillet. “ It is contrar}’ to his habits.” 

“Oh! I asked it of him. I am good to my 
tenants.” 

“If Pere Birotteau fails,” thought du Tillet, “this 
little imp would make an excellent assignee. His 
sharpness is invaluable ; when he is alone he must 
amuse himself by catching flies, like Domitian.” 

Du Tillet went to the card-table, where Claparon was 


206 


Ci%ar Birotteau, 


already stationed, under orders; Ferdinand thought 
that under shelter of a game of houillotte his counterfeit 
banker might escape notice. Their demeanor to each 
other was that of two strangers, and the most suspicious 
man could have detected nothing that betrayed an un- 
derstanding between them. Gaudissart, who knew the 
career of Claparon, dared not approach him after receiv- 
ing a solemnly frigid glance from the promoted commer- 
cial traveller which warned him that the upstart banker 
was not to be recognized by any former comrade. The 
ball, like a brilliant rocket, was extinguished by five 
o’clock in the morning. At that hour only some forty 
hackney-coaches remained, out of the hundred or more 
which had crowded the Rue Saint-Honore. Within, 
they were dancing the boulangere^ which has since been 
dethroned b}^ the cotillon and the English galop. Du 
Tibet, Roguin, Cardot junior, the Comte de Grand ville, 
and Jules Desmarets were playing at houillotte, Du Til- 
let won three thousand francs. The day began to dawn, 
the wax lights paled, the players joined the dancers for 
a last quadrille. In such houses the final scenes of a 
ball never pass off without some impropriety. The dig- 
nified personages have departed ; the intoxication of 
dancing, the heat of the atmosphere, the spirits con- 
cealed in the most innocent drinks, have mellowed the 
angularities of the old women, who good-naturedly join 
in the last quadrille and lend themselves to the excite- 
ment of the moment; the men are heated, their hair, 
lately curled, straggles down their faces, and gives 
them a grotesque expression which excites laughter; 
the young women grow volatile, and a few flowers drop 
from their garlands. The bourgeois Momus appears, 


Q6%ar Birotteau, 


207 


followed by his revellers. Laughs ring loudly ; all pres- 
ent surrender to the amusement of the moment, knowing 
that on the morrow toil will resume its sway. Matifat 
danced with a woman’s bonnet on his head ; Celestin 
called the figures of the interminable country dance, and 
some of the women beat their hands together excitedly 
at the words of command. 

“ How the}' do amuse themselves ! ” cried the happy 
Birotteau. 

“ I hope they won’t break anything,*’ said Constance 
to her uncle. 

“You have given the most magnificent ball I have 
ever seen, and I have seen many,” said du Tillet, bow- 
ing to his old master. 

Among the eight symphonies of Beethoven there is 
a theme, glorious as a poem, which dominates the finale 
of the symphon}' in C minor. When, after slow pre- 
parations by the sublime magician, so well understood 
by Habeneck, the enthusiastic leader of an orches- 
tra raises the rich veil with a motion of his hand and 
calls forth the transcendent theme towards which the 
powers of music have all converged, poets whose hearts 
have throbbed at those sounds will understand how 
the ball of Cesar Birotteau produced upon his simple 
being the same effect that this fecund harmon}' wrought 
in theii’s, — an effect to which the s^’mphon}’ in C minor 
owes its supremacy over its glorious sisters. A radiant 
fairy springs forward, lifting high her wand. We hear 
the rustle of the violet silken curtains which the angels 
raise. Sculptured golden doors, like those of the bap- 
tistery at Florence, turn on their diamond hinges. The 
eye is lost in splendid vistas : it sees a long perspective 


208 


CSsar Birotteau. 


of rare palaces where beings of a loftier nature glide. 
The incense of all prosperities sends up its smoke, the 
altar of all joy flames, the perfumed air circulates ! 
Beings with divine smiles, robed in white tunics bor- 
dered with blue, flit lightly before the eyes and show us 
visions of supernatural beauty, shapes of an incompar- 
able delicacy. The Loves hover in the air and waft the 
flames of their torches ! We feel ourselves beloved ; 
we are happy as we breathe a joy we understand not, 
as we bathe in the waves of a harmony that flows for 
all, and pours out to all the ambrosia that each desires. 
We are held in the grasp of our secret hopes which are 
realized, for an instant, as we listen. When he has led 
us through the skies, the great magician, with a deep 
mysterious transition of the basses, flings us back into 
the marshes of cold reality, only to draw us forth once 
more when, thirsting for his divine melodies, our souls 
cry out, “Again! Again The psychical history of 
that rare moment in the glorious finale of the C minor 
symphony is also that of the emotions excited by this 
fete in the souls of Cesar and of Constance. The flute 
of Collinet sounded the last notes of their commercial 
symphony. 

Weary, but happy, the Birotteaus fell asleep in the 
early morning amid echoes of the fete, — which for build- 
ing, repairs, furnishing, suppers, toilets, and the library 
(repaid to Cesarine) , cost not less, though Cesar was 
little aware of it, than sixty thousand francs. Such 
was the price of the fatal red ribbon fastened by the 
king to the buttonhole of an honest perfumer. If mis- 
fortunes were to overtake C4sar Birotteau, this mad ex- 
travagance would be sufficient to arraign him before the 


Ci^ar Birotteau, 


209 


criminal courts. A merchant is amenable to the laws 
if, in the event of bankruptc}’, he is shown to have been 
guilty of “ excessive expenditure.” It is perhaps more 
dreadful to go before the lesser courts charged with 
folly or blundering mistakes, than before the Court of 
Assizes for an enormous fraud. In the eyes of some 
people, it is better to be criminal than a fool. 



PAET 11. 

C^SAR GRAPPLING WITH MISFORTUNE. 

I. 

Eight daj’S after his ball, the last djdng flash of a 
prosperity’ of eighteen years now about to be extin- 
guished, Cesar Birotteau watched the passers-by from 
the windows of his shop, thinking over the expansion 
of his affairs, and beginning to And them burdensome. 
Until then all had been simple in his life ; he manufac- 
tured and sold, or bought to sell again. To-day the 
land speculation, his share in the house of A. Popinot 
and Company, the repayment of the hundred and sixty 
thousand francs thrown upon the market, which neces- 
sitated either a traffic in promissory notes (of which his 
wife would disapprove), or else some unheard-of success 
in Cephalic Oil, all fretted the poor man by the multi- 
plicity of ideas which they involved ; he felt he had more 
irons in the fire than he could lay hold of. How would 
Anselme guide the helm? Birotteau treated Popinot as 
a professor of rhetoric treats a pupil, — he distrusted his 
methods, and regretted that he was not at his elbow. 
The kick he had given Popinot to make him hold his 
tongue at Vauquelin’s explains the uneasiness which 
the young merchant inspired in his mind. 


212 


CSsar Birotteau, 


Birotteau took good care that neither his wife nor his 
daughter nor the clerks should suspect his anxiety ; but 
he was in truth like an humble boatman on the Seine 
whom the government has suddenly put in command 
of a frigate. Troubled thoughts filled his mind, never 
very capable of reflection, as if with a fog ; he stood 
still, as it were, and peered about to see his way. At 
this moment a figure appeared in the street for which 
he felt a violent antipathy ; it was that of his new 
landlord, little Molineux. Every one has dreamed 
dreams filled with the events of a lifetime, in which 
there appears and reappears some wa3'ward being, 
commissioned to plaj^ the mischief and be the villain 
of the piece. To Birotteau’s fancy Molineux seemed 
delegated by chance to fill some such part in his life. 
His weird face had grinned diabolicall}" at the ball, and 
he had looked at its magnificence with an evil e^^e. 
Catching sight of him again at this moment, Cesar was 
all the more reminded of the impression the little skin- 
flint (a word of his vocabularj') had made upon him, 
because Molineux excited fresh repugnance b^^ reappear- 
ing in the midst of his anxious re very. 

“ Monsieur,” said the little man, in his atrociously 
hypocritical voice, “ we settled our business so hastily 
that 3’ou forgot to guarantee the signatures on the little 
private deed.” 

Birotteau took the lease to repair the mistake. The 
architect came in at this moment^ and bowed to the 
perfumer, looking dbout him with a diplomatic air. 

“ Monsieur,” he whispered to Cesar presentl}^, “ 3’ou 
’ can easily understand that the first steps in a profession 
are difiScult ; you said 3^ou were satisfied with me, and 


CSsar Birotteau. 213 

it would oblige me very much if you would pay me my 
commission.” 

Birotteau, who had stripped himself of ready money 
when he put his current cash into Roguin's hands two 
weeks earlier, called to Celestin to make out an order 
for two thousand francs at ninety days’ sight, and to 
write the form of a receipt. 

“ I am very glad you took part of your neighbor’s 
rental on yourself,” said Molineux in a sly, half-sneer- 
ing tone. “ My porter came to tell me just now that 
the sherilf has affixed the seals to the Sieur Cayron’s 
appartement; he has disappeared.” 

“ I hope I’m not juggled out of five thousand francs,” 
thought Birotteau. 

“ Cayron always seemed to do a good business,” said 
Lourdois, who just then came in to bring his bill. 

A merchant is never safe from commercial reverses 
until he has retired from business,” said little Molineux, 
folding up his document with fussy precision. 

The architect watched the queer old man with the 
enjoyment all artists find in getting hold of a caricature 
which confirms their theories about the bourgeoisie. 

“ When we have got our head under an umbrella 
we generally think it is protected from the rain,” he 
said. 

Molineux noticed the mustachios and little chin-tuft 
of the artist much more than he did his face, and he de- 
spised that individual fully as much as Grindot despised 
him. He waited to give him a parting scratch as he 
went out. By dint of living so long with his cats 
Molineux had acquired, in his manners as well as in his 
e3*es, something unmistakably feline. 


214 


CSsar Birotteau. 


Just at this moment Ragon and Pilleranlt came in. 

“We have been talking of the land affair with the 
judge,” said Ragon in Cesar’s ear ; “ he says that in a 
speculation of that kind we must have a warranty from 
the sellers, and record the deeds, and pay in^cash, before 
we are really owners and co-partners.” 

“ Ah ! you are talking of the lands about the Made- 
leine,” said Lourdois ; “ there is a good deal said about 
them : there will be houses to build.” 

The painter who had come intending to have his bill 
settled, suddenty thought it more to his interest not to 
press Birotteau. 

“ I brought my bill because it was the end of the 
year,” he whispered to Cesar; “but there’s no 
hurry.” 

“ What is the matter, Cesar?” said Pillerault, notic- 
ing the amazement of his nephew, who, having glanced 
at the bill, made no replj’ to either Ragon or Lourdois. 

“ Oh, a trifle. I took notes to the amount of flve 
thousand francs from my neighbor, a dealer in um- 
brellas, and he has failed. If he has given me bad 
securities I shall be caught, like a fool.” 

“ And yet I have warned j^ou man}" times,” cried 
Ragon ; “ a drowning man will catch at hts father’s leg 
to save himself, and drown him too. I have seen so 
many failures ! People are not exactly scoundrels when 
the disaster begins, but they soon come to be, out of 
sheer necessity.” 

“ That ’s true,” said Pillerault. 

“ If I ever get into the Chamber of Deputies, and ever 
have any influence in the government,” said Birotteau, 
rising on his toes and dropping back on his heels, — 


Cimr Birotteau, 215 

“ What would 3’ou do?” said Lourdois, “ for you Ve 
a long head.” 

Molineux, interested in any discussion about law, 
lingered in the shop ; and as the attention of a few 
persons is apt to make others attentive, Pillerault and 
Ragon listened as gravel^" as the three strangers, though 
they perfectly" well knew Cesar’s opinions. 

“ I would have,” said the perfumer, “ a court of ir- 
removable judges, with a magistracy’' to attend to the 
application and execution of the laws. After the exam- 
ination of a case, during which the judge should fulfil the 
functions of agent, assignee, and commissioner, the mer- 
chant should be declared insolvent with rights of rein- 
statement^ or else bankrupt. If the former, he should be 
required to pay in full ; he should be left in control of 
his own property" and that of his wife ; all his belong- 
ings and his inherited property should belong to his 
creditors, and he should administer his affairs in their 
interests under supervision ; he should still carry’ on 
his business, signing alway’s ‘So-and-so, insolvent,’ un- 
til the whole debt is paid off. If bankrupt, he should 
be condemned, as formerly’, to the pillory’ on the Place 
de la Bourse, and exposed for two hours, wearing a 
green cap. His property^ and that of his wife, and all 
his rights of every kind should be handed over to his 
creditors, and he himself banished from the kingdom.” 

Business would be more secure,” said Lourdois ; 
“ people would think twice before launching into 
speculations.” 

“The existing laws are not enforced,” cried C^sar, 
lashing himself up. “Out of every hundred mer- 
chants there are more than fifty who never realize 


216 


Ci%ar Birotteau, 


seventy-five per cent of the whole value of their business, 
or who sell their merchandise at twentj’^-five per cent 
below the invoice price ; and that is the destruction of 
commerce.” 

“ Monsieur is very right,” said Molineux ; “ the law 
leaves a great deal too much latitude. There should 
either be total relinquishment of ever3'thing, or infamy.” 

“Damn it!” said Cesar, “at the rate things are 
going now, a merchant will soon be a licensed thief. 
With his mere signature he can dip into anybody'’ s 
money-drawer.” 

“ You have no mercy. Monsieur Birotteau,” said 
Lourdois. 

“ He is quite right,” said old Ragon. 

“ All insolvents are suspicious characters,” said Cesar, 
exasperated by his little loss, which sounded in his ears 
like the first cry of the view-halloo in the ears of the 
game. 

At this moment the late major-domo brought in 
Chevefs account, followed by a clerk sent by Felix, a 
waiter from the cafe Foy, and Collinet’s clarionet, each 
with a bill. 

“ Rabelais’ quarter of an hour,” said Ragon, smiling. 

“ It was a fine ball,” said Lourdois. 

“ I am busy,” said Cesar to the messengers ; who all 
left the bills and went away. 

“Monsieur Grindot,” said Lourdois, observing that 
the architect was folding up Birotteau’s cheque, “will 
you certify my account? You need only add it up; 
the prices were all agreed to by you on Monsieur 
Birotteau’s behalf.” 

Pillerault looked at Lourdois and Grindot. 


CSsar Birotteau. 


217 


“ Prices agreed upon between the architect and con- 
tractor?” he said in a low voice to his nephew, — “ they 
have robbed you.” 

Grindot left the shop, and Molineux followed him 
with a mysterious air. 

“ Monsieur,” he said, “ you listened to me, but you 
did not understand me, — I wish you the protection of 
an umbrella.” 

The architect was frightened. The more illegal a 
man’s gains the more he clings to them : the human 
heart is so made. Grindot had really studied the ap- 
partement lovingly ; he had put all his art and all his 
time into it ; he had given ten thousand francs worth of 
labor, and he felt that in so doing he had been the dupe 
of his vanity : the contractors therefore had little trou- 
ble in seducing him. The irresistible argument and 
threat, full}' understood, of injuring him professionally 
b}' calumniating his work were, however, less powerful 
than a remark made by Lourdois about the lands near 
the Madeleine. Birotteau did not expect to build a sin- 
gle house upon them ; he was speculating only in the 
value of the land ; but architects and contractors are to 
each other ver}^ much what authors and actors are, — 
mutually dependent. Grindot, ordered by Birotteau to 
stipulate the costs, went for the interests of the builders ‘ 
against the bourgeoisie ; and the result was that three 
large contractors — Lourdois, Chaffaroux, and Thorein 
the carpenter — proclaimed him ‘ ‘ one of those good 
fellows it is a pleasure to work for.” Grindot guessed 
that the contractor’s bills, out of which he was to have 
a share, would be paid, like his commission, in notes ; 
«md little Molineux had just filled his mind with doubts 


218 


CSsar Birotteau, 


as to their payment. The architect was about to be- 
come pitiless, — after the manner of artists, who are 
most intolerant of men in their dealings with the middle 
classes. 

By the end of December bills to the amount of sixty 
thousand francs had been sent in. Felix, the cafe Foy, 
Tanrade, and all the little creditors who ought to be 
paid in ready mone^", had asked for payment three 
times. Failure to pay such trifles as these do more 
harm in business than a real misfortune, — they foretell 
it : known losses are definite, but a panic defies all reck- 
oning. Birotteau saw his coflfers empt}^, and terror 
seized him : such a thing had never happened throughout 
his whole commercial life. Like all persons who have 
never struggled long with poverty, and who are by 
nature feeble, this circumstance, so common among the 
greater number of the pett}^ Parisian tradesmen, dis- 
turbed for a moment Cesar’s brain. He ordered Celestin 
to send round the bills of his customers and ask for 
payment. Before doing so, the head clerk made him 
repeat the unheard-of order. The clients, — a fine term 
applied by retail shopkeepers to their customers, and 
used by C^sar in spite of his wife, who however ended 
by saying, “Call them what you like, provided they 
pay!” — his clients, then, were rich people, through 
whom he had never lost money, who paid when they 
pleased, and among whom Cesar often had a floating 
amount of fifty or sixty thousand francs due to him. 
The second clerk went through the books and copied 
off the largest sums. Cesar dreaded his wife : that she 
might not see his depression under this simoom of mis- 
fortune, he prepared to go out. 


CSsar Birotteau, 


219 


“Good morning, monsieur,” said Grindot, entering 
with the lively manner artists put on when they speak 
of business, and wish to pretend they know nothing 
about it ; “I cannot get your paper cashed, and I am 
obliged to ask you to give me the amount in ready 
money. I am truly unhapp}^ in making this request, but 
I don’t wish to go to the usurers. I have not hawked 
your signature about ; I know enough of business to 
feel sure it would injure you. It is really in your own 
interest that I — ” 

“ Monsieur,” said Birotteau, horrified, “ speak lower 
if you please ; you surprise me strangely.” 

Lourdois entered. 

“Lourdois,” said Birotteau, smiling, “would you 
believe — ” 

The poor man stopped short; he was about to ask 
the painter to take the note given to Grindot, ridi- 
culing the architect with the good nature of a merchant 
sure of his own standing ; but he saw a cloud upon 
Lourdois’ brow, and he shuddered at his own impru- 
dence. The innocent jest would have been the death of 
his suspected credit. In such a case a prosperous mer- 
chant takes back his note, and does not offer it elsewhere. 
Birotteau felt his head swim, as though he had looked 
down the sides of a precipice into a measureless abj’ss. 

“ My dear Monsieur Birotteau,” said Lourdois, draw- 
ing him to the back of the shop, “ my account has been 
examined, audited, and certified ; I must ask you to 
have the money ready for me to-morrow. I marry my 
daughter to little Crottat ; he wants monej’, for notaries 
will not take paper ; besides, I never give promissory 
notes ” 


220 


C6%ar Birotteau, 


“ Send to me on the day after to-morrow,” said Bi- 
rotteau proudly, counting on the payment of his own 
bills. “And you too, Monsieur,” he said to the 
architect. 

“ Why not pay at once? ” said Grindot. 

“ I have my workmen in the faubourg to pay?” said 
Birotteau, who knew not how to lie. 

He took his hat once more intending to follow them 
out, but the mason, Thorein, and Chaffaroux stopped 
him as he was closing the door. 

“ Monsieur,” said Chaffaroux, “ we are in great need 
of money.” 

“ Well, I have not the mines of Peru,” said C4sar, 
walking quickly away from them. “There is some- 
thing beneath all this,” he said to himself. “ That 
cursed ball ! All the world thinks I am worth millions. 
Yet Lourdois had a look that was not natural ; there ’s 
a snake in the grass somewhere.” 

He walked along the Rue Saint-Honor^, in no special 
direction, and feeling much discomposed. At the 
corner of a street he ran against Alexandre Crottat, 
just as a ram, or a mathematician absorbed in the 
solution of a problem, might have knocked against 
another of his kind. 

“Ah, monsieur,” said the future notary, “one 
word ! Has Roguin given your four hundred thousand 
francs to Monsieur Claparon ? ” 

“The business was settled in your presence. Mon- 
sieur Claparon gave me no receipt; my acceptances 
were to be — negotiated. Roguin was to give him — 
my two hundred and forty thousand francs. He was 
told that he was to pay for the property definitely. 


CSmr Birotteau, 221 

Monsieur Popinot the judge said — The receipt ! — 
but — why do you ask the question ? ” 

“ Why ask the question? To know if your two hun- 
dred and forty thousand francs are still with Roguin. 
Roguin was so long connected with you, that perhaps 
out of decent feeling he may have paid them over to 
Claparon, and 3^011 will escape ! But, no ! what a fool I 
am ! He has carried off Claparon’s mone^^ as well ! 
Happily, Claparon had on]y paid over, to my care, one 
hundred thousand francs. I gave them to Roguin just 
as I would give 3"OU my^ purse, and I have no receipt 
for them. The owners of the land have not received 
one penny ; they have just been talking to me. The 
moneys you thought y’ou raised upon your property in 
the Faubourg du Temple had no existence for you, or 
for the borrower ; Roguin has squandered it, together 
with 3'Our hundred thousand francs, which he used up 
long ago, — and y^our last hundred thousand as well, for 
I just remember drawing them from the bank.’* 

The pupils of Cesar’s eyes dilated so enormously that 
he saw only red flames. 

“ Your hundred thousand francs in his hands, my hun- 
dred thousand fiancs for his practice, a hundred thousand 
from Claparon, — there ’s three hundred thousand francs 
purloined, not to speak of other thefts which will be 
discovered,” exclaimed the young notary. “ Madame 
Roguin is not to be counted on. Du Tillet has had a 
narrow escape. Roguin tormented him for a month to 
get him into that land speculation, but happily all his 
funds were tied up in an affair with Nucingen. Roguin 
has written an atrocious letter to his wife ; I have read 
it. He has been making free with his clients* money for 


222 


CSsar Blrotteau. 


years ; and why? for a mistress, — la belle Hollandaise. 
He left her two weeks ago. The squandering hussy 
had n’t a farthing left ; they sold her furniture, — she 
had signed promissory notes. To escape arrest, she took 
refuge in a house in the Palais-Royal, where she was 
assassinated last night by a captain in the army. God 
has quickly punished her ; she has wasted Roguin’s 
whole fortune and much more. There are some women 
to whom nothing is sacred: think of squandering the 
trust-moneys of a notary ! Madame Roguin won’t have 
a penny, except by claiming her rights of dower ; the 
scoundrel’s whole property is encumbered to its full 
value. I bought the practice for three hundred thou- 
sand francs, — I, who thought I was getting a good 
thing ! — and paid a hundred thousand down. I have 
no receipt ; the creditors will think I am an accomplice 
if I say a word about that hundred thousand francs, and 
when a man is starting in life he must be careful of his 
reputation. There will hardly be thirty per cent saved 
for the creditors. At my age, to get such a set-back ! 
A man fift3’-nine }^ears of age to keep a mistress ! the 
old villain ! It is only two weeks since he told me not 
to marr^" Cesarine ; he said you would soon be without 
bread, — the monster ! ” 

Alexandre might have talked on indefinitely, for Birot- 
teau stood still, petrified. Ever}’ phrase was a calamity, 
like the blows of a bludgeon. He heard the death-bells 
tolling in his ears, — just as his eyes had seen, at the 
first word, the flames of his fortune. Alexandre Crottat, 
who thought the worthy perfumer a strong and able 
man, was alarmed at his paleness and rigidit}’. He was 
not aware that Roguin had carried off Cesar’s whole 


CSsar Birotteau, 


223 


property. The thought of immediate suicide passed 
through the brain of the victim, deeply religious as he 
was. In such a case suicide is only a way to escape a 
thousand deaths ; it seems logical to take it. Alexandre 
Crottat gave him his arm, and tried to make him walk 
on, but it was impossible : his legs gave way under him 
as if he were drunk. 

“ What is the matter?” said Crottat. “ Dear Mon- 
sieur Cesar, take courage ! it is not the death of a man. 
Besides, 3"ou will get back j^our fort^^ thousand francs. 
The lender had n’t the money ready, you never received 
it, — that is sufficient to set aside the agreement.” 

“ My ball — my cross — two hundred thousand francs 
in paper on the market, — no mone^' in hand ! The 
Ragons, Pillerault, — and m3" wife, who saw true — ” 

A rain of confused words, revealing a weight of 
crushing thoughts and unutterable suffering, poured 
from his lips, like hail lashing the flowers in the garden 
of “ The Queen of Roses.” 

“ I wish the3" would cut off my head,” he said at last ; 
“ its weight troubles me, it is good for nothing.” 

“ Poor Pere Birotteau,” said Alexandre, “ are 3"ou in 
danger ? ” 

“ Danger! ” 

“Well, take courage ; make an eflbrt.” 

“Eflbrt!” 

“ Du Tillet was 3"our clerk ; he has a good head ; he 
will help 3'ou.” 

“Du Tillet!” 

“ Come, tr3" to walk.” 

“ My God ! I cannot go home as I am,” said Birot- 
teau. “ You who are my friend, if there are friends, — 


(Ji%ar Birotteau. 


you in whom I took an interest, who have dined at my 
house, — take me somewhere in a carriage, for my 
wife’s sake. Xandrot, go with me ! ” 

The young notary compassionately put the inert 
mechanism which bore the name of Cesar into a street 
coach, not without great difficulty. 

“Xandrot,” said the perfumer, in a voice choked 
with tears, — for the tears were now falling from his 
eyes, and loosening the iron band which bound his 
brow, — “ stop at my shop; go in and speak to Celes- 
tin for me. My friend, tell him it is a matter of life or 
death, that on no consideration must he or any one talk 
about Roguin’s flight. Tell Cesarine to come down to 
me, and beg her not to say a word to her mother. We 
must beware of our best friends, of Pillerault, Ragon, 
everybody.” 

The change in Birotteau’s voice startled Crottat, who 
began to understand the importance of the warning ; he 
fulfilled the instructions of the poor man, whom Celestin 
and Cesarine were horrified to find pale and half insen- 
sible in a corner of the carriage. 

“ Keep the secret,” he said. 

“Ah! ” said Xandrot to himself, ‘‘he is coming to. 
I thought him lost.” 

From thence they went, at Cesar’s request, to a judge 
of the commercial courts. The conference between 
Crottat and the magistrate lasted long, and the presi- 
dent of the chamber of notaries was summoned. Cesar 
was carried about from place to place, like a bale of 
goods ; he never moved, and said nothing. Towards 
seven in the evening Alexandre Crottat took him home. 
The thought of appearing before Constance braced his 


C4sar Birotteau, 


225 


nerves. The young notary had the charity to go before, 
and warn Madame Birotteau that her husband had had 
a rush of blood to the head. 

“ His ideas are rather cloudy,” he said, with a ges- 
ture implying disturbance of the brain. “Perhaps he 
should be bled, or leeches applied.” 

“ No wonder,” said Constance, far from dreaming of 
a disaster ; “ he did not take his precautionary medicine 
at the beginning of the winter, and for the last two 
months he has been working like a galley slave, — just 
as if his fortune were not made.” 

The wife and daughter entreated Cesar to go to bed, 
and they sent for his old friend Monsieur Haudry. The 
old man was a physician of the school of Moliere, a 
great practitioner and in favor of the old-fashioned for- 
mulas, who dosed his patients neither more nor less 
than a quack, consulting physician though he was. He 
came, studied the expression of Cesar’s face, and ob- 
serving symptoms of cerebral congestion, ordered an 
immediate application of mustard plasters to the soles 
of his feet. 

“ What can have caused it?” said Constance. 

“ The damp weather,” said the doctor, to whom C^- 
sarine had given a hint. 

It often becomes a physician’s duty to utter deliber- 
ately some silly falsehood, to save honor or life, to 
those who are about a sick-bed. The old doctor had 
seen much in his day, and he caught the meaning of 
half a word. Cesarine followed him to the staircase, 
and asked for directions in managing the case. 

“ Quiet and silence ; when the head is clear we will 
try tonics.” 


226 


CSsar Birotteau. 


Madame Cesar passed two days at the bedside of her 
husband, who seemed to her at times delirious. He 
lay in her beautiful blue room, and as he looked at the 
curtains, the furniture, and all the costly magnificence 
about him, he said things that were wholly incompre- 
hensible to her. 

“ He must be out of his mind,” she whispered to 
Cesarine, as Cesar rose up in bed and recited clauses of 
the commercial Code in a solemn voice. 

“ ‘ If the expenditure is judged excessive ! * Away 
with those curtains ! ” 

At the end of three terrible days, during which his 
reason was in danger, the strong constitution of the 
Tourangean peasant triumphed ; his head grew clear. 
Monsieur Haudry ordered stimulants and generous 
diet, and before long, after an occasional cup of coffee, 
Cesar was on his feet again. Constance, wearied out, 
took her husband’s place in bed. 

“Poor woman! ” said Cesar, looking at her as she 
slept. 

“Come, papa, take courage! you are so superior a 
man that you will triumph in the end. This trouble 
won’t last ; Monsieur Anselme will help you.” 

Cesarine said these vague words in the tender tones 
which give courage to a stricken heart, just as the 
songs of a mother soothe the weary child tormented 
with pain as it cuts its teeth. 

“Yes, my child, I shall struggle on; but say not 
a word to any one, — not to Popinot who loves us, 
nor to your uncle Pillerault. I shall first write to my 
brother ; he is canon and vicar of the cathedral. He 
spends nothing, and I have no doubt he has means. If 


CSsar Birotteau. 


227 


he saves only three thousand francs a year, that would 
give him at the end of twenty years one hundred 
thousand francs. In the provinces the priests lay up 
money.” 

Cesarine hastened to bring her father a little table 
with writing-things upon it, — among them the surplus 
of the invitations printed on pink paper. 

“Burn all that!” cried her father. “The devil 
alone could have prompted me to give that ball. If 
I fail, I shall seem to have been a swindler. Stop ! ” 
he added, “ words are of no avail.” And he wrote the 
following letter : — 


My dear Brother, — I find myself in so severe a com* 
mercial crisis that I must ask you to send me all the money 
you can dispose of, even if you have to borrow some for the 

Ever yours, 


Your niece, Cesarine, who is watching me as I write, 
while my poor wife sleeps, sends you her tender remem* 
brances. 


This postscript was added at Cesarine’s urgent re* 
quest ; she then took the letter and gave it to Raguet. 

“Father,” she said, returning, “here is Monsieur 
Lebas, who wants to speak to you. 

“Monsieur Lebas!” cried Cesar, frightened, as 
though his disaster had made him a criminal, — “ a 
judge ! ” 

“My dear Monsieur Birotteau, I take too great an 
interest in y'ou,” said the stout draper, entering the 
room, “we have known each other too long, — for we 
were both elected judges at the same time, — not to 
tell you that a man named Bidault, called Gigonnet, a 


228 


Cesar Birotteau^ 


usurer, has notes of yours turned over to his order, and 
marked ‘ not guaranteed,’ by the house of Claparon. 
Those words are not only an alfront, but they are the 
death of your credit.” 

“ Monsieur Claparon wishes to speak to you,” said 
Celestin, entering ; “ may I tell him to come up?” 

“Now we shall learn the meaning of this insult,” 
said Lebas. \ 

“ Monsieur,” said Cesar to Claparon, as he entered, 
^Hhis is Monsieur Lebas, a judge of the commercial 
courts, and my friend — ” 

“Ah! monsieur is Monsieur Lebas?” interrupted 
Claparon. “Delighted with the opportunity. Monsieur 
Lebas of the commercial courts ; there are so many Le- 
bas, you know, of one kind or another — ” 

“ He has seen,” said Birotteau, cutting the gabbler 
short, “the notes which I gave you, and which I 
understood from you would not be put into circu- 
lation. He has seen them bearing the words ‘ not 
guaranteed.’ ” 

“ Well,” said Claparon, “ they are not in general cir- 
culation ; they are in the hands of a man with whom I 
do a great deal of business, — Fere Bidault. That is 
why I aflSxed the words ‘ not guaranteed.’ If the notes 
were intended for circulation you would have made them 
payable to his order. Monsieur Lebas will understand 
my position. What do these notes represent? The 
price of landed property. Paid by whom ? By Birot- 
teau. Why should I guarantee Birotteau by my signa- 
ture? We are to pay, each on his own account, our 
half of the price of the said land. Now, it is enough 
to be jointly and separately liable to the sellers. I hold 


CSsar Birotteau. 


229 


inflexibly to one commercial rule : I never give my 
guarantee uselessly, any more than I give my receipt 
for moneys not yet paid. He who signs, pays. I don’t 
wish to be liable to pay three times.” 

“ Three times ! ” said Cesar. 

“Yes, monsieur,” said Claparon, “I have already 
guaranteed Birotteau to the sellers, why should I 
guarantee him again to the bankers? The circum- 
stances in which we are placed are very hard. Roguin 
has carried off a hundred thousand francs of mine ; 
therefore, my half of the property costs me five hun- 
dred thousand francs instead of four hundred thousand. 
Roguin has also carried off two hundred and forty thou- 
sand francs of Birotteau’s. What would you do in my 
place. Monsieur Lebas? Stand in my skin fora mo- 
ment and view the case. Give me your attention. Say 
that we are engaged in a transaction on equal shares : 
you provide the money for your share, I give bills for 
mine ; I offer them to you, and you undertake, purely 
out of kindness, to convert them into money. You 
learn that I, Claparon, — banker, rich, respected (I 
accept all the virtues under the sun) , — that the virtu- 
ous Claparon is on the verge of failure, with six million 
of liabilities to meet : would j-ou, at such a moment, 
give your signature to guarantee mine? Of course 
not; you would be mad to do it. Well, Monsieur 
Lebas, Birotteau is in the position which I have sup- 
posed for Claparon. Don’t you see that if I indorse 
for him I am liable not only for my own share of the 
purchase, but I shall also be compelled to reimburse to 
the full amount of Birotteau’s paper, and without — ” 

“To whom?” asked Birotteau, interrupting him. 


230 


Cisar Birotteau, 


“ — without gaining his half of the property?” said 
Claparon, paying no attention to the interruption. “ For 
I should have no rights in it ; I should have to buy it 
over again ; consequently, I repeat, I should have to pay 
for it three times.” 

“Reimburse whom?” persisted Birotteau. 

“ Why, the holder of the notes, if I were to indorse, 
and 3’ou were to fail.” 

“ I shall not fail, monsieur,” said Birotteau. 

“ Veiy good,” said Claparon. “ But 3^ou have been 
a judge, and you are a clever merchant ; 3’ou know very 
well that we should look ahead and foresee ever3dhing ; 
3^ou can’t be surprised that I should attend to m3^ busi- 
ness properl3\” 

“ Monsieur Claparon is right,” said Joseph Lebas. 

“ I am right,” said Claparon, — “ right commerciall3\ 
But this is an affair of landed propert3\ Now, what 
must I have? Money, to pay the sellers. We won’t 
speak now of the two hundred and forty thousand 
francs, — which I am sure Monsieur Birotteau will 
be able to raise soon,” said Claparon, looking at Lebas. 
“ I have come now to ask for a trifle, merety twent3"- 
five thousand francs,” he added, turning to Birotteau. 

“Twent3"-five thousand francs!” cried Cesar, feel- 
ing ice in his veins instead of blood. “ What claim 
have 3^ou, monsieur?” 

“What claim? He3’ I we have to make a pa3’ment 
and execute the deeds before a notar3\ Among our- 
selves, of course, we could come to an understanding 
about the pa3"ment, but when we have to do with a 
financial public functionary it is quite another thing! 
He won’t palaver ; he ’ll trust 3"OU no farther than he 


CSsar Birotteau, 


231 


can see. We have got to come down with forty thou- 
sand francs, to secure the registration, this week. I 
did not expect reproaches in coming here, for, thinking 
this twenty-five thousand francs might be inconvenient 
to you just now, I meant to tell you that, by a mere 
chance, I have saved you — ” 

“What?” said Birotteau, with that rending cry of 
anguish which no man ever mistakes. 

“A trifle! The notes amounting to twent3^-five 
thousand francs on divers securities which Roguin 
gave me to negotiate I have credited to j’ou, for the 
registration payment and the fees, of which I will send 
3’ou an account ; there will be a small amount to de- 
duct, and 3’ou will then owe me about six or seven 
thousand francs.” 

“All that seems to me perfectly proper,” said Lebas. 
“ In your place, monsieur, I should do the same towards 
a stranger.” 

“ Monsieur Birotteau won’t die of it,” said Claparon ; 
“it takes more than one shot to kill an old wolf. I 
have seen wolves with a ball in their head run, by God, 
like — wolves ! ” 

“ Who could have foreseen such villany as Roguin’s ?” 
said Lebas, as much alarmed by Cesar’s silence as by 
the discovery of such enormous speculations outside of 
his friend’s legitimate business of perfumery. 

“I came ver3^ near giving Monsieur Birotteau a re- 
ceipt for his four hundred thousand francs,” said Clap- 
aron. “ I should have blown up if I had, for I had 
given Roguin a hundred thousand m3"self the da3^ 
before. Our mutual confidence is all that saved me. 
Whether the money were in a lawyer’s hands or in 


232 


CSsar Birotte.au. 


mine until the day came to pay for the land, seemed to 
us all a matter of no importance.” 

“ It would have been better,” said Lebas, “ to have 
kept the money in the Bank of France until the time 
came to make the payments.” 

“ Roguin was the bank to me,” said Cesar. “ But he 
is in the speculation,” he added, looking at Claparon. 

“Yes, for one-fourth, by verbal agreement only. 
After being such a fool as to let him run off with my 
mone}*, I sha’n’t be such a blockhead as to throw an}" 
more after it. If he sends me my hundred thousand 
francs, and two hundred thousand more for his half of 
our share, I shall then see about it. But he will take 
good care not to send them for an affair which needs 
five years’ pot-boiling before you get any broth. If he 
has only carried off, as they say, three hundred thou- 
sand francs, he will want the income of all of that to 
live suitably in foreign countries.” 

“ The villain ! ” 

“ Eh ! the devil take him ! It was a woman who got 
him where he is,” said Claparon. “ Where’s the old 
man who can answer for himself that he won’t be 
the slave of his last fancy? None of us, who think 
ourselves so virtuous, know how we shall end. A last 
passion, — eh ! it is the most violent of all ! Look at 
Cardot, Camusot, Matifat; they all have their mis- 
tresses ! If we have been gobbled up to satisfy Ro- 
guin’s, is n’t it our own fault? Why did n’t we distrust 
a notary who meddles with speculations ? Every notary, 
every broker, every trustee who speculates is an object 
of suspicion. Failure for them is fraudulent bankrupt- 
cy ; they are sure to go before the criminal courts, and 


CSsar Birotteau, 


233 


therefore they prefer to run out of the country. I 
sha’n’t commit such a stupid blunder again. Well, 
well ! we are too shaky ourselves in the matter not to 
let judgment go by default against the men we have 
dined with, who have given us fine balls, — men of 
the world, in short. Nobody complains ; we are all to 
blame.” 

“Very much to blame,” said Birotteau. “The 
laws about failures and insolvency should be looked 
into.” 

“ If you have any need of me,” said Lebas to C^sar, 
“ I am at 3"Our service.” 

“ Monsieur does not need any one,” said the irre 
pressible chatterbox, whose floodgates du Tillet had set 
wide open when he turned on the water, — for Claparon 
was now repeating a lesson du Tillet had cleverly 
taught him. “His course is quite clear. Roguin’s 
assets will give fifty per cent to the creditors, so little 
Crottat tells me. Besides this. Monsieur Birotteau gets 
back the forty thousand on his note to Roguin’s client, 
which the lender never paid over ; then, of course, he 
can borrow on that property. We have four months 
ahead before we are obliged to make a payment of two 
hundred thousand francs to the sellers. Between now 
and then. Monsieur Birotteau can pay off his notes ; 
though of course he can’t count on what Roguin has 
carried off to meet them. Even if Monsieur Birotteau 
should be rather pinched, with a little manipulation he 
will come out all right.” 

The poor man took courage, as he heard Claparon 
analyzing the affair and summing it up with advice as 
to his future conduct. His countenance grew firm and 


234 


CSsar Birotteau. 


decided ; and he began to think highly of the late com- 
mercial traveller’s capacity. Du Tillet had thought 
best to let Claparon believe himself really the victim of 
Roguin. He had given Claparon a hundred thousand 
francs to pay over to Roguin the day before the latter’s 
flight, and Roguin had returned the money to du Tillet. 
Claparon, therefore, to that extent was pla3ing a gen- 
uine part ; and he told whoever would listen to him 
that Roguin had cost him a hundred thousand francs. 
Du Tillet thought Claparon was not bold enough, and 
fancied he had still too much honor and decency to 
make it safe to trust him with the full extent of his 
plans ; and he knew him to be menta% incapable of 
conjecturing them. 

“ If our flrst friend is not our first dupe, we shall 
never find a second,” he made answer to Claparon, on 
the day when his catchpenny banker reproached him 
for the trick ; and he flung him away like a wornout 
instrument. 

Monsieur Lebas and Claparon went out together. 

“ I shall pull through,” said Birotteau to himself. 
“ M3’ liabilities amount to two hundred and thirt3’-five 
thousand francs ; that is, sixty-five thousand in bills 
for the costs of the ball, and a hundred and sevent3’- 
five thousand given in notes for the lands. To meet 
these, I have m3^ share of Roguin’s assets, say perhaps 
one hundred thousand francs ; and I can cancel the 
loan on my property in the Faubourg du Temple, as 
the mortgagee never paid the money, — in all, one 
hundred and forty thousand. All depends on making 
a hundred thousand francs out of Cephalic Oil, and 
waiting patiently, with the help of a few notes, or a 


Cisar Birotteau. 


235 


credit at a banker’s, until I repair my losses or the 
lands about the Madeleine reach their full value.” 

When a man crushed by misfortune is once able to 
make the fiction of a hope for himself by a series of 
arguments, more or less reasonable, with which he bol- 
sters himself up to rest his head, it often happens that 
he is really saved. Many a man has derived energy 
from the confidence born of illusions. Possibly, hope is 
tlie better half of courage ; indeed, the Catholic religion 
makes it a virtue. Hope ! has it not sustained the weak, 
and given tlie fainting heart time and patience to await 
the chances and changes of life ? Cesar resolved to con- 
fide his situation to his wife’s uncle before seeking for 
succor elsewhere. But as he walked down the Rue Saint 
Honore towards the Rue des Bourdonnais, he endured 
an inward anguish and distress which shook him so 
violently that he fancied his health was giving way. 
His bowels seemed on fire. It is an established fact 
that persons who feel through their diaphragms suffer 
in those parts when overtaken by misfortune, just as 
others whose perceptions are in their heads suflEer from 
cerebral pains and affections. In great crises, the 
physical powers are attacked at the point where the 
individual temperament has placed the vital spark. 
Feeble beings have the colic. Napoleon slept. Before 
assailing the confidence of a life-long friendship, and 
breaking down all the barriers of pride and self-assur- 
ance, an honorable man must needs feel in his heart — 
and feel it more than once — the spur of that cruel 
rider, necessit}’. Thus it happened that Birotteau had 
been goaded for two days before he could bring himself 
to seek his uncle ; it was, indeed, only family reasons 


236 


C6mr Birotteau, 


which finall}^ decided him to do so. In any state of the 
case, it was his duty to explain his position to the severe 
old ironmonger, his wife’s uncle. Nevertheless, as he 
reached the house he felt that inward faintness which 
a child feels when taken to a dentist’s ; but this shrink- 
ing of the heart involved the whole of his life, past, 
present, and to come, — it was not the fugitive pain 
of a moment. He went slowly up the stairs. 


Cimr Birotteau. 


237 


11 . 

The old man was reading the “ Constitutionel ” in 
his chimney-corner, before a little round table on which 
stood his frugal breakfast, — a roll, some butter, a plate 
of Brie cheese, and a cup of coffee. 

“ Here is true wisdom,” thought Birotteau, envying 
his uncle’s life. 

“ Well ! ” said Pillerault, taking off his spectacles, 
“ I heard at the caf^ David last night about Roguin’s 
affair, and the assassination of his mistress, la belle 
Hollandaise. I hope, as we desire to be actual owners 
of the property", that you obtained Claparon’s receipt 
for the money.” 

“ Alas ! uncle, no. The trouble is just there, — you 
have put your finger upon the sore.” 

“ Good God ! you are ruined ! ” cried Pillerault, letting 
fall his newspaper, which Birotteau picked up, though 
it was the “ Constitutionel.” 

Pillerault was so violentlj" roused by his refiections 
that his face — like the image on a medal and of the 
same stern character — took a deep bronze tone, such 
as the metal itself takes under the oscillating tool of 
a coiner ; he remained motionless, gazing through the 
window-panes at the opposite wall, but seeing nothing, 
— listening, however, to Birotteau. Evidently he heard 
and judged, and weighed the pros and cons with the 
inflexibility of a Minos who had crossed the Styx of 


238 


CSsar Birotteau. 


commerce when he quitted the Quai des Morfondus for 
his little third storey. 

“Well, uncle?” said Birotteau, who waited for an 
answer, after closing what he had to say with an en- 
treaty that Pillerault would sell sixty thousand francs 
out of the Funds. 

“ Well, my poor nephew, I cannot do it ; you are too 
heavily involved. The Ragons and I each lose our 
fifty thousand francs. Those worthy people have, by 
my advice, sold their shares in the mines of Wortschin : 
I feel obliged, in case of loss, not to return the capital 
of course, but to succor them, and to succor my niece 
and Cesarine. You may all want bread, and you shall 
find it with me.” 

“ Want bread, uncle? ” 

“ Yes, bread. See things as they are, C^sar. You 
cannot extricate yourself. With five thousand six hun- 
dred francs income, I could set aside four thousand 
francs for you and the Ragons. If misfortune overtakes 
you, — I know Constance, she will work herself to the 
bone, she will deny herself everything; and so will 
you, Cesar.” 

“ All is not hopeless, uncle.” 

“ I cannot see it as you do.” 

“ I will prove that you are mistaken.” 

“ Nothing would give me greater happiness.” 

Birotteau left Pillerault without another word. He 
had come to seek courage and consolation, and he re- 
ceived a blow less severe, perhaps, than the first ; but 
instead of striking his head it struck his heart, and his 
heart was the whole of life to the poor man. After 
going down a few stairs he returned. 


CSsar Birotteau. 


239 


“ Monsieur,” he said, in a cold voice, “ Constance 
knows nothing. Keep my secret at any rate; beg 
the Kagons to say nothing, and not to take from my 
home the peace I need so much in my struggle against 
misfortune.” 

Pillerault made a gesture of assent. 

“ Courage, Cesar ! ” he said. “ I see you are angry 
with me ; but later, when you think of your wife and 
daughter, you will do me justice.” 

Discouraged by his uncle’s opinion, and recognizing 
its clear-sightedness, Cesar tumbled from the heights of 
hope into the mir}^ marshes of doubt and uncertainty. 
In such horrible commercial straits a man, unless his 
soul is tempered like that of Pillerault, becomes the 
plaything of events ; he follows the ideas of others, or 
his own, as a traveller pursues a will-o’-the-wisp. He 
lets the gust whirl him along, instead of lying flat and 
not looking up as it passes ; or else gathering himself 
together to follow the direction of the storm till he can 
escape from the edges of it. In the midst of his pain 
Birotteau bethought him of the steps he ought to take 
about the mortgage on his property. He turned towards 
the Rue Vivienne to find Derville, his solicitor, and in- 
stitute proceedings at once, in case the lawyer should 
see any chance of annulling the agreement. He found 
Derville sitting by the fire, wrapped in a white woollen 
dressing-gown, calm and composed in manner, like all 
law3’ers long used to receiving terrible confidences. 
Birotteau noticed for the first time in his life this neces- 
sary^ coldness, which struck a chill to the soul of a man 
grasped by the fever of imperilled interests, — passion- 
ate, wounded, and cruelly gashed in his life, his honor, 


240 


Cimr Birotteau. 


his wife, his child, as Cesar showed himself to be while 
he related his misfortunes. 

“ If it can be proved,” said Derville, after listening to 
him, “ that the lender no longer had in Roguin’s hands 
the sum which Roguin pretended to borrow for you upon 
your property, then, as there has been no delivery of 
the money, there is ground for annulling the contract ; 
the lender may seek redress through the warranty, as 
you will for your hundred thousand francs. I will 
answer for the case, however, as much as one can ever 
answer. No case is won till it is tried.” 

The opinion of so able a law3’er restored Cesar’s 
courage a little, and he begged Derville to obtain a 
judgment within a fortnight. The solicitor replied that 
it might take three months to get such a judgment as 
would annul the agreement. 

“ Three months ! ” cried Birotteau, who needed im- 
mediate resources. 

“ Though we may get the case at once on the docket, 
we cannot make 3’our adversary keep pace with us. He 
will emplo}’^ all the law’s delays, and the barristers are 
seldom read3". Perhaps your opponents will let the 
case go b}" default. We can’t always get on as we wish,” 
said Derville, smiling. 

“ In the commercial courts — ” began Birotteau. , 

“ Oh ! ” said the law^'er, “ the judges of the commer- 
cial courts and the judges of the civil courts are differ- 
ent sorts of judges. You dash through things. At 
the Palais de Justice we have stricter forms. Forms 
are the bulwark of law. How would 3"ou like slap-dash 
judgments which can’t be appealed, and which would 
make vou lose forty thousand francs? Well, your ad- 


(JHar Birotteau. 


241 


versarj^, who sees that sum involved, will defend him- 
self. Delays may be called judicial fortifications.” 

“You are right,” said Birotteau, bidding Derville 
good-by, and going hurriedly away, with death in his 
heart. 

“ They are all right. Money ! money ! I must have 
money ! ” he cried as he went along the streets, talking 
to himself like other busj" men in the turbulent and 
seething city, which a modern poet has called a vat. 
When he entered his shop, the clerk who had carried 
round the bills informed him that the customers had re- 
turned the receipts and kept the accounts, as it was so 
near the first of January. 

“ Then there is no money to be had anywhere,” said 
the perfumer, aloud. 

He bit his lips, for the clerks all raised their heads 
and looked at him. 

Five days went by ; five days during which Braschon, 
Lourdois, Therein, Grindot, Chaffaroux, and all the 
other creditors with unpaid bills passed through the 
chameleon phases that are customary to uneas}’ cred- 
itors before they take the sanguinary colors of the 
commercial Bellona, and reach a state of peaceful con- 
fidence. In Paris the astringent stage of suspicion and 
mistrust is as quick to declare itself as the expansive 
flow of confidence is slow in gathering way. The cred- 
itor who has once turned into the narrow path of com- 
mercial fears and precautions speedily takes a course 
of malignant meanness which puts him below the level 
of his debtor. He passes from specious civility to 
impatient rage, to the surly clamor of importunity, to 
bursts of disappointment, to the livid coldness of a mind 
la 


242 


CSsar Birotteau, 


made up to vengeance, and the scowling insoience of a 
summons before the courts. Braschon, the rich up- 
holsterer of the Faubourg Saint- Antoine, who was . not 
invited to the ball, and was therefore stabbed in his 
self-love, sounded the charge ; he insisted on being paid 
within twentj^-four hours. He demanded security ; not 
an attachment on the furniture, but a second mortgage 
on the property in the Faubourg du Temple. 

In spite of such attacks and the violence of these 
recriminations, a few peaceful intervals occurred, when 
Birotteau breathed once more ; but instead of resolutely 
facing and vanquishing the first skirmishings of adverse 
fortune, Cesar employed his whole mind in the effort 
to keep his wife, the only person able to advise him, 
from knowing anything about them. He guarded the 
very threshold of his door, and set a watch on all 
around him. He took C^lestin into confidence so far 
as to admit a momentary embarrassment, and Celestin 
examined him with an amazed and inquisitive look. 
In his eyes Cesar lessened, as men lessen in pres- 
ence of disasters when accustomed only to success, 
and when their whole mental strength consists of 
knowledge which commonplace minds acquire through 
routine. 

Menaced as he was on so many sides at once, and 
without the energy or capacity to defend himself, Cesar 
nevertheless had the courage to look his position in the 
face. To meet the payments on his house and on his 
loans, and to pa^^ his rents and his current expenses, he 
required, between the end of December and the fifteenth 
of January, a sum of sixty thousand francs, half of 
which must be obtained before the thirtieth of December- 


CSsar Birotteau. 


248 


All his resources put together gave him a scant twent}^ 
thousand ; he lacked ten thousand francs for the first 
payments. To his mind the position did not seem des- 
perate ; for like an adventurer who lives from day to da}^ 
he saw only the present moment. He resolved to at- 
tempt, before the news of his embarrassments was made 
public, what seemed to him a great stroke, and seek 
out the famous Fran9ois Keller, banker, orator, and 
philanthropist, celebrated for his benevolence and for 
his desire to serve the interests of Parisian commerce, 
— with the view, we maj^ add, of being always returned 
to the Chamber as a deputy of Paris. 

The banker was Liberal, Birotteau was Roj^alist ; but 
the perfumer judged by his own heart, and believed that 
the difference in their political opinions would only be 
one reason the more for obtaining the credit he intended 
to ask. In case actual securities were required he felt 
no doubt of Popinot’s devotion, from whom he expected 
to obtain some thirt}^ thousand francs, which would 
enable him to await the result of his law-suit by satis- 
fying the demands of the most exacting of the creditors. 
The demonstrative perfumer, who told his dear Con- 
stance, with his head on her pillow, the smallest 
thoughts and feelings of his whole life, looking for the 
lights of her contradiction, and gathering courage as he 
did so, was now prevented from speaking of his situation 
to his head-clerk, his uncle, or his wife. His thoughts 
were therefore doubly heavy, — and yet the generous 
mart3T preferred to suffer, rather than fling the fiery 
brand into the soul of his wife. He meant to tell her 
of the danger when it was over. The awe with which 
she inspired him gave him courage. He went every 


244 


C^%ar Birotteau, 


morning to hear Mass at Saint-Roch, and took God for 
his confidant. 

“ If I do not meet a soldier coming home from Saint- 
Roch, my request will be granted. That will be God’s 
answer,” he said to himself, after praying that God 
would help him. 

And he was overjoyed when it happened that he did 
not meet a soldier. Still, his heart was so heavy that 
he needed another heart on which to lean and moan 
Cesarine, to whom from the first he confided the fatal 
truth, knew all his secrets. Many stolen glances passed 
between them, glances of despair or smothered hope, 
— interpellations of the eye darted with mutual eager- 
ness, inquiries and replies full of s^’mpathy, ra3'S 
passing from soul to soul. Birotteau compelled him- 
self to seem gay, even jovial, with his wife. If Con- 
stance asked a question — bah ! ever3'thing was going 
well ; Popinot (about whom Cesar knew nothing) was 
succeeding ; the oil was looking up ; the notes with 
Claparon would be paid ; there was nothing to fear. 
His mock joy was terrible to witness. When his wife 
had fallen asleep in the sumptuous bed, Birotteau 
would rise to a sitting posture and think over his 
troubles. Cesarine would sometimes creep in with 
bare feet, in her chemise, and a shawl over her white 
shoulders. 

“Papa, I hear you, — you are crying,” she would 
say, cr3ung herself. 

Birotteau sank into such torpor, after writing the- 
letter which asked for an interview with the great 
Francois Keller, that his daughter took him out for 
a walk through the streets of Paris. For the first 


CSsar Birotteau, 


245 


time he was roused to notice enormous scarlet pla- 
cards on all the walls, and his eyes encountered the 
words “ Cephalic Oil.” 

While catastrophes thus threatened “The Queen of 
Roses” to westward, the house of A. Popinot was 
rising, radiant in the eastern splendors of success . By 
the advice of Gaudissart and Finot, Anselme launched 
his oil heroicall3\ Two thousand placards were pasted 
in three daj’ s on the most conspicuous spots in all Paris. 
No one could avoid coming face to face with Cephalic 
Oil, and reading a pithy sentence, constructed by Fi- 
not, which announced the impossibility^ of forcing the 
hair to grow and the dangers of dy^eing it, and was 
judiciously accompanied by a quotation from Vauque- 
lin’s report to the Academy of Sciences, — in short, 
a regular certificate of life for dead hair, ofiered to all 
those who used Cephalic Oil. Every hair-dresser in 
Paris, and all the perfumers, ornamented their door- 
ways with gilt frames containing a fine impression of 
the prospectus on vellum, at the top of which shone 
the engraving of Hero and Leander, reduced in size, 
with the following assertion as an epigraph: “The 
peoples of antiquity preserved their hair by the use of 
Cephalic Oil.” 

“He has devised frames, permanent frames, per- 
petual placards,” said Birotteau to himself, quite dumb- 
founded as he stood before the shop-front of the Cloche 
d’ Argent. 

“ Then you have not seen,” said his daughter, “ the 
frame which Monsieur Anselme brought with his own 
hands, sending Celestin three hundred bottles of oil?” 

“ No,” he said. 


246 


C4mr Birotteau, 


“Celestin has already sold fifty to passers-by, and 
sixt}" to regular customers.” 

“ Ah ! ” exclaimed Cesar. 

The poor man, bewildered b}^ the clash of bells which 
misery jangles in the ears of its victims, lived and 
moved in a dazed condition. The night before, Popi- 
not had waited more than an hour to see him, and went 
away after talking with Constance and Cesarine, who 
told him that Cesar was absorbed in his great enterprise. 

“ Ah, true ! the lands about the Madeleine.” 

Happily, Popinot — who for a month had never left 
the Rue des Cinq-Diamants, sitting up all night, and 
working all Sunday at the manufactory — had seen 
neither the Ragons, nor Pillerault, nor his uncle the 
judge. He allowed himself but two hours’ sleep, poor 
lad ! he had only two clerks, but at the rate things were 
now going, he would soon need four. In business, op- 
portunity is everything. He who does not spring upon 
the back of success and clutch it by the mane, lets 
fortune escape. Popinot felt that his suit would prosper 
if six months hence he could say to his uncle and aunt, 
“ I am secure ; my fortune is made,” and carry to Birot- 
teau thirty or forty thdtisand francs as his share of the 
profits. He was ignorant of Roguin’s fiight, of the 
disasters and embarrassments which were closing dowm 
on Cesar, and he therefore could say nothing indiscreet 
to Madame Birotteau. 

Popinot had promised Finot five hundred francs for 
every puff in a first-class newspaper, and already there 
were ten of them ; three hundred francs for every 
second-rate paper, and there were ten of those, — in 
all of them Cephalic Oil was mentioned three times 


C^.mr Birotteau, 


247 


a month ! Finot saw three thousand francs for himself 
out of these eight thousand. — his first stake on the vast 
green table of speculation ! He therefore sprang like a 
lion on his friends and acquaintances ; he haunted the 
editorial rooms ; he wormed himself to the very bed- 
sides of editors in the morning, and prowled about the 
lobby of the theatres at night. ‘‘Think of my oil, 
dear friend ; I have no interest in it — bit of good fel- 
lowship, you know ! ’' “ Gaudissart, jollj^ dog ! ” Such 
was the first and the last phrase of all his allocutions. 
He begged for the bottom lines of the final columns of 
the newspapers, and inserted articles for which he 
asked no pay from the editors. Wily as a supernumer- 
ary who wants to be an actor, wide-awake as an errand- 
boy who earns sixty francs a month, he wrote wheedling 
letters, flattered the self-love of editors-in-chief, and 
did them base services to get his articles inserted. 
Money, dinners, platitudes, all served the purpose of 
his eager activity. With tickets for the theatre, he 
bribed the printers who about midnight are finishing 
up the columns of a newspaper with little facts and 
ready-made items kept on hand. At that hour Finot 
hovered around printing-presses, busy, apparently, with 
proofs to be corrected. Keeping friends with every- 
bod}^ he brought Cephalic Oil to a triumphant suc- 
cess over Pate de Regnauld, and Brazilian Mixture, 
and all the other inventions which had the genius 
to comprehend journalistic influence and the suction 
power that reiterated newspaper articles have upon the 
public mind. In these early days of their innocence 
many journalists were like cattle ; they were unaware 
of their inborn power; their heads were full of ac* 


248 


CSsar Birotteau, 


tresses, — Floriiie, Tullia, Mariette, etc. They laid down 
the law to everybodj", but they picked up nothing for 
themselves. As Finofs schemes did not concern ac- 
tresses who wanted applause, nor plays to be puffed, nor 
vaudevilles to be accepted, nor articles which had to be 
paid for, — on the contrar}^, he paid money on occasion, 
and gave timely breakfasts, — there was soon not a 
newspaper in Paris which did not mention Cephalic Oil, 
and call attention to its remarkable concurrence with 
the principles of Vauquelin’s analj^sis ; ridiculing all 
those who thought hair could be made to grow, and 
proclaiming the danger of dyeing it. 

These articles rejoiced the soul of Gaudissart, who 
used them as ammunition to destro}" prejudice, bringing 
to bear upon the provinces what his successors have 
since named, in honor of him, “the charge of the 
tongue-batter}'.’’ In those days Parisian newspapers 
ruled the departments, which were still (unhappy re- 
gions !) without local organs. The papers were there- 
fore soberly studied, from the title to the name of the 
printer, — a last line which may have hidden the ironies 
of persecuted opinion. Gaudissart, thus backed up by 
the press, met with startling success from the very first 
town which he favored with his tongue. Every shop- 
keeper in the provinces wanted the gilt frames, and the 
prospectuses with Hero and Leander at the top of them. 

In Paris, Finot fired at Macassar Oil that delightful 
joke which made people so merry at the Funambules^ 
when Pierrot, taking an old hair-broom, anointed it 
with Macassar Oil, and the broom incontinently became 
a mop. This ironical scene excited universal laughter. 
Finot gayly related in after days that without the 


Ci%ar Birotteau. 


249 


thousand crowns he earned through Cephalic Oil he 
should have died of misery and despair. To him a 
thousand crowns was fortune. It was in this campaign 
that he guessed — let him have the honor of being the 
first to do so — the illimitable power of advertisement, 
of which he made so great and so judicious a use. 
Three months later he became editor-in-chief of a little 
journal which he finally bought, and which laid the 
foundation of his ultimate success. Just as the tongue- 
battery of the illustrious Gaudissart, that Murat of 
travellers, when brought to bear upon the provinces and 
the frontiers, made the house of A. Popinot and Company 
a triumphant mercantile success in the country regions, 
so likewise did Cephalic Oil triumph in Parisian opinion, 
thanks to Finot’s famishing assault upon the newspapers, 
which gave it as much publicit}^ as that obtained by Bra- 
zilian Mixture and the Pate de Regnauld. From the 
start, public opinion, thus carried by storm, begot three 
successes, three fortunes, and proved the advance guard 
of that invasion of ambitious schemes which since have 
poured their crowded battalions into the arena of 
journalism, for which they have created — oh, mighty 
revolution ! — the paid advertisement. The name of 
A. Popinot and Company now fiaunted on all the walls 
and all the shop-fronts. Incapable of perceiving the 
full bearing of such publicity, Birotteau merely said to 
his daughter, — 

“ Little Popinot is following in my steps.” 

He did not understand the difference of the times, 
nor appreciate the power of the novel methods of exe- 
cution, whose rapidity and extent took in, far more 
promptly than ever before, the whole commercial unb 


250 


CSsar Birotteau. 


verse. Birotteau had not set foot in his manufactory 
since the ball ; he knew nothing therefore of the energy 
and enterprise displa^^ed by Popinot. Anselme had en- 
gaged all Cesar’s workmen, and often slept himself on 
the premises. His fancy pictured Cesarine sitting on 
the cases, and hovering over the shipments ; her name 
seemed printed on the bills ; and as he worked with his 
coat off, and his shirt-sleeves rolled up, courageously 
nailing up the cases himself, in default of the necessary 
clerks, he said in his heart, “ She shall be mine ! ” 

The following day Cesar went to Fran9ois Keller’s 
house in Rue du Houssaye, having spent the night 
turning over in his mind what he ought to say, or ought 
not to say, to a leading man in banking circles. Hor- 
rible palpitations of the heart assailed him as he ap- 
proached the house of the Liberal banker, who belonged 
to a part}" accused, with good reason, of seeking the 
overthrow of the restored Bourbons. The perfumer, 
like all the lesser tradesmen of Paris, was ignorant of 
the habits and customs of the upper banking circles. 
Between the higher walks of finance and ordinary com- 
merce, there is in Paris a class of secondary houses, 
useful intermediaries for banking interests, which find in 
them an additional security. Constance and Birotteau, 
who had never gone beyond their means, whose purse 
had never run dry, and who kept their moneys in their 
own possession, had so far never needed the services 
of these intermediary houses ; they were therefore un- 
known in the higher regions of a bank. Perhaps it is a 
mistake not to take out credits, even if we do not need 
them. Opinions vary on this point. However that 


Ci$ar Birotteau, 


251 


may be, Birotteau now deeply regretted that his signa- 
ture was unknown. Still, as deputj’-mayor, and there- 
fore known in politics, he thought he had only to 
present his name and be admitted : he was quite igno- 
rant of the ceremonial, half regal, which attended an 
audience with FranQois Keller. He was shown into a 
salon which adjoined the study of the celebrated banker, 
— celebrated in various ways. Birotteau found himself 
among a numerous company of deputies, writers, jour- 
nalists, stock-brokers, merchants of the upper grades, 
agents, engineers, and above all satellites, or hench- 
men, who passed from group to group, and knocked in 
a peculiar manner at the door of the study, which they 
were, as it seemed, privileged to enter. 

“What am I in the midst of all this?” thought 
Birotteau, quite bewildered hy the stir of this intellect- 
ual kiln, where the daily bread of the opposition was 
kneaded and baked, and the scenes of the grand tragi- 
comedy played by the Left were rehearsed. On one 
side he heard them discussing the question of loans to 
complete the net-work of canals proposed by the de- 
partment on highways ; and the discussion involved 
millions ! On the other, journalists, pandering to the 
banker’s self-love, were talking about the session of the 
day before, and the impromptu speech of the great man. 
In the course of two long hours Birotteau saw the 
banker three times, as he accompanied certain persons 
of importance three steps from the door of his study. 
But Francois Keller went to the door of the ante- 
chamber with the last, who was General Foy. 

“ There is no hope for me ! ” thought Birotteau with 
a shrinking heart. 


252 


CSmr Birotteau. 


When the banker returned to his study, the troop of 
courtiers, friends, and self-seekers pressed round him 
like dogs pursuing a bitch. A few bold curs slipped, in 
spite of him, into the sanctum. The conferences lasted 
five, ten, or fifteen minutes. Some went away chap- 
fallen ; others affected satisfaction, and took on airs of 
importance. Time passed ; Birotteau looked anxiously 
at the clock. No one paid the least attention to the 
hidden grief which moaned silently in the gilded arm- 
chair in the chimney corner, near the door of the cabinet 
where dwelt the universal panacea — credit ! Cesar 
remembered sadly that for a brief moment he too had 
been a king among his own people, as this man was a 
king daily ; and he measured the depth of the abj’ss 
down which he had fallen. Ah, bitter thought ! how 
many tears were driven back during those waiting 
hours ! how many times did he not pray to God that 
this man might be favorable to him ! for he saw, through 
the coarse varnish of popular good humor, a tone of in- 
solence, a choleric tyranny, a brutal desire to rule, 
which terrified his gentle spirit. At last, when only 
ten or twelve persons were left in the room, Birotteau 
resolved that the next time the outer door of the study 
turned on its hinges he would rise and face the great 
orator, and say to him, “ I am Birotteau ! ” The gren- 
adier who sprang first into the redoubt at Moscow dis- 
pla3^ed no greater courage than Cesar now summoned up 
to perform this act. 

“ After all, I am his mayor,” he said to himself as 
he rose to proclaim his name. 

The countenance of Francois Keller at once became 
affable ; he evidently desired to be cordial. He glanced 


C6mr Birotteau, 


253 


at Cesar’s red ribbon, and stepping back, opened the 
door of his study and motioned him to enter, remain- 
ing himself for some time to speak with two men, 
who rushed in from the staircase with the violence of a 
waterspout. 

“ Decazes wants to speak to you,” said one of them. 

“ It is a question of defeating the Pavilion Marsan ! ” 
cried the other. “ The King’s eyes are opened. He is 
coming round to us.” 

“We will go together to the Chamber,” said the 
banker, striking the attitude of the frog who imitates 
an ox. 

“How can he find time to think of business?’’ 
thought Birotteau, much disturbed. 

The sun of successful superiority dazzled the per- 
fumer, as light blinds those insects who seek the falling 
daj^ or the half-shadows of a starlit night. On a table 
of immense size lay the budget, piles of the Chamber 
records, open volumes of the “ Moniteur,” with passages 
carefully marked, to throw at the head of a Minister 
his forgotten words and force him to recant them, 
under the jeering plaudits of a foolish crowd incapable 
of perceiving how circumstances alter cases. On an- 
other table were heaped portfolios, minutes, projects, 
specifications, and all the thousand memoranda brought 
to bear upon a man into whose funds so many nascent 
industries sought to dip. The royal luxury of this 
cabinet, filled with pictures, statues, and works of art ; 
the encumbered chimney-piece ; the accumulation of 
many interests, national and foreign, heaped together 
like bales, — all struck Birotteau’s mind, dwarfed his 
powers, heightened his terror, and froze his blood. 


254 


C^sar Birotteau, 


On Francois Keller’s desk lay bundles of notes and 
checks, letters of credit, and commercial circulars. 
Keller sat down and began to sign rapidly such letters 
as needed no examination. 

“ Monsieur, to what do I owe the honor of this visit? ” 

At these words, uttered for him alone by a voice 
which influenced all Europe, while the eager hand was 
running over the paper, the poor perfumer felt some- 
thing that was like a hot iron in his stomach. He as- 
sumed the ingratiating manner which for ten ^^ears past 
the banker had seen all men put on when they wanted 
to get the better of him for their own purposes, and 
which gave him at once the advantage over them. 
Fran9ois Keller accordinglj^ darted at Cesar a look 
which shot through his head, — a Napoleonic look. 
This imitation of Napoleon’s glance was a silly satire, 
then popular with certain parvenus who had never 
been so much as the base coin of their emperor. This 
glance fell upon Birotteau, a devotee of the Right, a 
partisan of the government, — himself an element of 
monarchical election, — like the stamp of a custom- 
house officer affixed to a bale of merchandise. 

“Monsieur, I will not waste your time; I will be 
brief. I come on commercial business onl}' , — to ask 
if I can obtain a credit. I was formerly a judge of the 
commercial courts, and known to the Bank of France. 
You will easil}* understand that if I had plenty of ready 
money I need only apply there, where you are yourself 
a director. I had the honor of sitting on the Bench -of 
commerce with Monsieur le baron Thibon, chairman of 
the committee on discounts ; and he, most assuredly, 
would not refuse me. But up to this time I have never 


CSsar Birotteau. 


255 


made use of my credit or my signature ; my signature 
is virgin, — and you know what diflSculties that puts 
in the way of negotiation.” 

Keller moved his head, and Birotteau took the move- 
ment for one of impatience. 

“Monsieur, these are the facts,” he resumed. “I 
am engaged in an affaii* of landed property, outside of 
my business — ” 

Francois Keller, who continued to sign and read his 
documents, without seeming to listen to Birotteau, here 
turned round and made him a little sign of attention, 
which encouraged the poor man. lie thought the matter 
was taking a favorable turn, and breathed again. 

“ Go on ; I hear 3^ou,” said Keller good-naturedly. 

“ I have purchased, at half its value, certain land 
about the Madeleine — ” 

“Yes; I heard Nucingen speak of that immense 
affair, — undertaken, I believe, by Claparon and 
Company,” 

“Well,” continued Cesar, “a credit of a hundred 
thousand francs, secured on mj" share of the purchase, 
will suffice to carr3' me along until I can reap certain 
profits from a discovery of mine in perfumer}". Should 
it be necessary, I will cover your risk by notes on a 
new establishment, — the firm of A. Popinot — ” 

Keller seemed to care very little about the firm of 
Popinot; and Birotteau, perceiving that he had made 
a false move, stopped short ; then, alarmed by the si- 
lence, he resumed, “ As for the interest, we — ” 

“Yes, yes,” said the banker, “the matter can be 
arranged ; don’t doubt my desire to be of service to 
you. Busy as I am, — for I have the finances of 


256 


CSsar Birotteau. 


Europe on mj shoulders, and the Chamber takes all 
my time, — you will not be surprised to hear that 1 
leave the vast bulk of our affairs to the examination of 
others. Go and see my brother Adolphe, downstairs ; 
explain to him the nature of your securities ; if he 
approves of the operation, come back here with him 
to-morrow or the day after, at five in the morning, — 
the hour at which I examine into certain business mat- 
ters. We shall be proud and happy to obtain your 
confidence. You are one of those consistent royalists 
with whom, of course, we are political enemies, but 
whose good-will is always flattering — ” 

“ Monsieur,” said Cesar, elated by this specimen of 
tribune eloquence, “I trust I am as worth}^ of the 
honor you do me as I was of the signal and royal favor 
which I earned by my services on the Bench of com- 
merce, and by fighting — ” 

“Yes, yes,” interrupted the banker, “your reputa- 
tion is a passport. Monsieur Birotteau. You will, of 
course, propose nothing that is not feasible, and j^ou 
can depend on our co-operation.” 

A lady, Madame Keller, one of the two daughters of 
the Comte de Gondreville, here opened a door which 
Birotteau had not observed. 

“ I hope to see you before you go to the Chamber,” 
she said. 

It is two o’clock,” exclaimed the banker ; “ the bat- 
tle has begun. Excuse me, monsieur, it is a question 
of upsetting the ministr3\ See my brother — ” 

He conducted the perfumer to the door of the salon, 
and said to one of the servants, “ Show monsieur the 
way to Monsieur Adolphe.” 


CSsar B^rotteau, 


257 


As Cesar traversed a lab^Tinth of staircases, under 
the guidance of a man in liverj^ towards an office far 
less sumptuous but more useful than that of the head 
of the house, feeling himself astride the gentle steed 
of hope, he stroked his chin, and augured well from 
the flatteries of the great man. He regretted that an 
enemy of the Bourbons should be so gracious, so able, 
so fine an orator. 

Full of these illusions he entered a cold bare room, 
furnished with two desks on rollers, some shabbj" arm- 
chairs, a threadbare carpet, and curtains that were 
much neglected. This cabinet was to that of the elder 
brother like a kitchen to a dining-room, or a work-room 
to a shop. Here were turned inside out all matters 
touching the bank and commerce ; here all enterprises 
were sifted, and the first tithes levied, on behalf of the 
bank, upon the profits of industries judged worthy of 
being upheld. Here were devised those bold strokes 
by which short-lived monopolies were called into being 
and rapidly sucked dry. Here defects of legislation 
were chronicled ; and bargains driven, without shame, 
for what the Bourse terms “ pickings to be gobbled 
up,” commissions exacted for the smallest services, 
such as lending their name to an enterprise, and allow- 
ing it credit. Here were hatched the specious, legal 
plots by which silent partnerships were taken in doubt- 
ful enterprises, that the bank might lie in wait for the 
moment of success, and then crush them and seize the 
property by demanding a return of the capital at a crit- 
ical moment, — an infamous trick, which involves and 
ruins many small shareholders. 

The two brothers had each selected his appropriate 
17 


258 


Oesar Birotteau. 


part. Upstairs, Fran9ois, the brilliant man of the 
world and of politics, assumed a regal air, bestowed 
courtesies and promises, and made himself agreeable to 
all. His manners were easy and compljdng ; he looked 
at business from a lofty standpoint ; he intoxicated new 
recruits and fledgling speculators with the wine of his 
favor and his fervid speech, as he made plain to them 
their own ideas. Downstairs, Adolphe unsaid his 
brother’s words, excused him on the ground of political 
preoccupation, and cleverly slipped the rake along the 
cloth. He played the part of the responsible partner, 
the careful business man. Two words, two speeches, 
two interviews, were required before an understanding 
could be reached with this perfidious house. Often the 
gracious “ yes” of the sumptuous upper fioor became a 
dry “ no ” in Adolphe’s region. This obstructive man- 
oeuvre gave time for refiection, and often served to fool 
unskilful applicants. As Cesar entered, the banker’s 
brother was conversing with the famous Palma, intimate 
adviser of the house of Keller, who retired on the ap- 
pearance of the perfumer. When Birotteau had ex- 
plained his errand, Adolphe — much the cleverest of 
the two brothers, a thorough lynx, with a keen eye, 
thin lips, and a drj^ skin — cast at Birotteau, lowering 
his head to look over his spectacles as he did so, a look 
which we must call the banker-look, — a cross between 
that of a vulture and that of an attorney ; eager yet 
indifferent, clear yet vague, glittering though sombre. 

“ Have the goodness to send me the deeds relating 
to the affair of the Madeleine,” he said ; “ our security 
in making you this credit lies there : we must examine 
them before we consent to make it, or discuss the terms. 


Cimr Birotteau, 


259 


If the affair is sound, we shall be willing, so as not to 
embarrass you, to take a share of the profits in place 
of receiving a discount.” 

“Well,” thought Birotteau, as he walked away, “I 
see what it means. Like the hunted beaver, I am to 
give up a part of my skin. After all, it is better to be 
shorn than killed.” 

He went home smiling gayly, and his gayety was 
genuine. 

“ I am saved,” he said to Cesarine. “ I am to hav£ 
a credit with the Kellers.” 


260 


CSsar Birotteau* 


III. 

It was not until the 29th of December that Birotteau 
was allowed to re-enter Adolphe’s cabinet. The first 
time he called, Adolphe had gone into the country to look 
at a piece of property which the great orator thought of 
buying. The second time, the two Kellers were deepl}^ 
engaged for the whole day, preparing a tender for a 
loan proposed in the Chamber, and they begged Mon- 
sieur Birotteau to return on the following Frida 3 \ 
These delays were killing to the poor man. But Fri- 
day came at last. Birotteau found himself in the cabi- 
net, placed in one corner of the fireplace, facing the light 
from a window, with Adolphe Keller opposite to him. 

“ They are all right, monsieur,” said the banker, 
pointing to the deeds. “But what pa^’ments have you 
made on the price of the land ? ” 

“ One hundred and forty thousand francs.” 

“Cash?” 

“ Notes.” 

“ Are they paid?” 

“ They are not yet due.” 

“ But supposing you have paid more than the present 
value of the property, where will be our security? It 
will rest solely on the respect you inspire, and the con- 
sideration in which you are held. Business is not con- 
ducted on sentiment. If you had paid two hundred 
thousand francs, supposing that there were another one 


CSsar Birotteau, 


261 


hundred thousand paid down in advance for possession 
of the land, we should then have the security of a hun- 
dred thousand francs, to warrant us in giving you a 
credit of one hundred thousand. The result might be 
to make us owners of your share by our paying for it, 
instead of your doing so ; consequently we must be satis- 
fied that the afiair is a sound one. To wait five years to 
double our capital won’t do for us ; it is better to employ 
it in other ways. There are so manj^ chances ! You are 
trying to circulate paper to pay your notes when they 
fall due, — a dangerous game. It is wiser to step back 
for a better leap. The affair does not suit us.” 

This sentence struck Birotteau as if the executioner 
had stamped his shoulder with the marking-iron; he 
lost his head. 

“Come,” said Adolphe, “my brother feels a great 
interest in you ; he spoke of you to me. Let us exam- 
ine into your affairs,” he added, glancing at Cdsar with 
the look of a courtesan eager to pay her rent. 

Birotteau became Molineux, — a being at whom he 
had once laughed so loftily. Enticed along by the 
banker, — who enjoyed disentangling the bobbins of the 
poor man’s thought, and who knew as well how to cross- 
question a merchant as Popinot the judge knew how to 
make a criminal betray himself, — C^sar recounted all 
his enterprises ; he put forward his Double Paste of 
Sultans and Carminative Balm, the Roguin affair, and 
his lawsuit about the mortgage on which he had received 
no money. As he watched the smiling, attentive face 
of Keller and the motions of his head, Birotteau said 
to himself, “He is listening; I interest him; I shall 
get my credit!” Adolphe Keller was laughing at 


262 


(7^sar Birotteau, 


Cesar, just as Cesar had laughed at Molineux. Car- 
ried away by the lust of speech peculiar to those who 
are made drunk by misfortune, Cesar revealed his 
inner man ; he gave his measure when he ended by 
offering the security of Cephalic Oil and the firm of 
Popinot, — his last stake. The worthy man, led on by 
false hopes, allowed Adolphe Keller to sound and 
fathom him, and he stood revealed to the banker’s eyes 
as a royalist jackass on the point of failure. Delighted 
to foresee the bankruptcy of a deputy-mayor of the ar- 
rondissement, an oflScial just decorated, and a man in 
power, Keller now curtly told Birotteau that he could 
neither give him a credit nor sa}" anything in his fa- 
vor to his brother FranQois. If Fran9ois gave way to 
idiotic generosity, and helped people of another wa}" of 
thinking from his own, men who were his political 
enemies, he, Adolphe, would oppose with might and 
main any attempt to make a dupe of him, and would 
prevent him from holding out a hand to the adversary 
of Napoleon, wounded at Saint-Roch. Birotteau, exas- 
perated, tried to say something about the cupidity of 
the great banking-houses, their harshness, their false 
philanthrop}^ ; but he was seized with so violent a pain 
that he could scarcely stammer a few words about the 
Bank of France, from which the Kellers were allowed 
to borrow. 

“ Yes,” said Adolphe Keller ; “ but the Bank would 
never discount paper which a private bank refused.” . 

“ The Bank of France,” said Birotteau, “ has always 
seemed to me to miss its vocation when it congratulates 
itself, as it does in presenting its reports, on never 
losing more than one or two hundred thousand francs 


CSsar Birotteau. 


263 


^iarough Parisian commerce : it should be the guardian 
and protector of Parisian commerce.” 

Adolphe smiled, and got up with the air and gesture 
of being bored. 

“ If the Bank were mixed up as silent partners with 
people who are involved in the most knavish and 
hazardous market in the world, it would soon have to 
hand in its schedule. It has, even now, immense dif- 
ficulty in protecting itself against forgeries and false 
circulations of all kinds. Where would it be if it had 
to take account of the business of every one who wanted 
to get something out of it ? ” 

“ Where shall I find ten thousand francs for to- 
morrow, the Thirtieth?” cried Birotteau, as he crossed 
the court3"ard. 

According to Parisian custom, notes were paid on 
the thirtieth, if the thirty-first was a holida3\ 

As Cesar reached the outer gate, his ej^es bathed in 
tears, he scarcely saw a fine English horse, covered 
with sweat, which drew the handsomest cabriolet that 
rolled in those da^^s along the pavements of Paris, and 
which was now pulled up suddenly" beside him. He 
would gladly have been run over and crushed b}" it ; if 
he died by accident, the confusion of his aflairs would 
be laid to that circumstance. He did not recognize 
du Tillet, who in elegant morning dress jumped lightly 
down, throwing the reins to his groom and a blanket 
over the back of his smoking thoroughbred. 

“What chance brings j^ou here?” said the former 
clerk to his old patron. 

Du Tillet knew very well what it was, for the Kellers 


264 


Cimr Birotteau, 


had made inquiries of Claparon, who by referring them 
to du Tillet had demolished the past reputation of the 
poor man. Though quickly checked, the tears on 
Cesar’s face spoke volumes. 

“ Is it possible that you have asked assistance from 
these Bedouins?” said du Tillet, “ these cut-throats of 
commerce, full of infamous tricks ; who run up indigo 
when they have monopolized the trade, and pull down 
rice to force the holders to sell at low prices, and so 
enable them to manage the market? Atrocious pirates, 
who have neither faith, nor law, nor soul, nor honor ! 
You don’t know what they are capable of doing. They 
will give you a credit if they think you have got a good 
thing, and close it the moment you get into the thick 
of the enterprise ; and then you will be forced to make 
it all over to them, at any villanous price they choose 
to give. Havre, Bordeaux, Marseilles, could tell you 
tales about them ! They make use of politics to cover 
up their filthy ways. If I were you I should get what 
I could out of them in any way, and without scruple. 
Let us walk on, Birotteau. Joseph, lead the horse 
about, he is too hot : the devil ! he is a capital of a 
thousand crowns.” 

So saying, he turned toward the boulevard. 

“ Come, my dear master, — for 3^ou were once my mas- 
ter, — tell me, are you in want of money? Have they 
asked 3^011 for securities, the scoundrels ? I, who know 
you, I offer you money on 3’our simple note. I have 
made an honorable fortune with infinite pains. I began 
it in Germany ; I may as well tell you that I bought up 
the debts of the king, at sixty per cent of their amount ; 
your indorsement was very useful to me at that time. 


Cimr Birotteau, 


265 


and I am not ungrateful, — not I. If you want ten 
thousand francs, they are yours.” 

“ Du Tillet ! ” cried Cesar, “ can it be true? you are 
not joking with me? Yes, I am rather pinched, but 
only for a moment.” 

“ I know, — that affair of Roguin,” replied du Tillet. 
“ Hey ! I am in for ten thousand francs which the old 
rogue borrowed of me just before he went off; but 
Madame Roguin will pay them back from her dower. 
I have advised the poor woman not to be so foolish as 
to spend her own fortune in paying debts contracted 
for a prostitute. Of course, it would be well if she paid 
everything, but she cannot favor some creditors to the 
detriment of others. You are not a Roguin ; I know 
you,” said du Tillet, — “ 3 ’ou would blow your brains 
out rather than make me lose a sou. Here we are at 
Rue de la Chaussee-d’Antin ; come home with me.” 

The upstart took pleasure in leading his old master 
through a gorgeous appartement, instead of entering at 
once by the counting-room ; he led him slowly that he 
might see the sumptuous dining-room, decorated with 
pictures bought in Germany, and the two salons, of an 
elegance and luxury Birotteau had never beheld except 
in the mansion of the Due de Lenoncourt. The eyes 
of the good bourgeois were dazzled by the gilded walls, 
the works of art, the precious vases, and distracting 
bric-a-brac, and all the many prettj" details before 
which the luxury of Madame Cesar’s appartement 
paled. Knowing the cost of his own folly, C4sar 
asked himself, “ Where did he get all these millions? ” 

They entered a bedroom, with which Madame Birot- 
teau’s compared like that of a chorus-singer’s on a 


266 


Cemr Birotteau. 


fourth floor with the appartement of a prima-donna. 
The ceiling was of violet-colored satin, heightened in 
its effect by folds of white satin ; a rug of ermine lay at 
the bedside, and contrasted with the purple tones of a 
Turkish carpet. The furniture and all the accessories 
were novel in shape, costly, and choice in character. 
Birotteau paused before an exquisite clock, decorated 
with Cupid and Psyche, just designed for a famous 
banker, from whom du Tillet had obtained the sole copy 
ever made of it. The former master and his former 
clerk at last reached an elegant coquettish cabinet, 
more redolent of love than finance. Madame Roguin 
had doubtless contributed, in return for the care be- 
stowed upon her fortune, the paper-knife in chiselled 
gold, the paper-weights of carved malachite, and all 
the costly knick-knacks of unrestrained luxury. The 
carpet, one of the rich products of Belgium, was as 
pleasant to the eye as to the foot which felt the soft 
thickness of its texture. Du Tillet made the poor, 
amazed, bewildered perfumer sit down at a corner of 
the fireplace. 

“ Will you breakfast with me?” 

He rang the bell. Enter a footman better dressed 
than Birotteau. 

‘‘Tell Monsieur Legras to come here, and then find 
Joseph at the door of the Messrs. Keller ; tell him to 
return to the stable. Leave word with Adolphe Keller 
that instead of going to see him, I shall expect him at 
the Bourse ; and order breakfast served immediately.” 

These commands amazed Cesar. 

“ He whistles to that formidable Adolphe Keller like 
a dog 1 — he, du Tillet 1 ” 


Cesar Birotteau, 


267 


A little tiger, about a thumb high, set out a table 
which Birotteau had not observed, so slim was it, and 
brought in a pate de foie gras, a bottle of claret, and a 
number of dainty dishes which only appeared in Birot- 
teau’s household once in three months, on great festive 
occasions. Du Tillet enjoyed the effect. His hatred 
towards the onl}^ man who had it in his power to de- 
spise him burned so hotl}^ that Birotteau seemed, even 
to his own mind, like a sheep defending itself against 
a tiger. For an instant a generous idea entered du 
Tillet’s heart : he asked himself if his vengeance were 
not sufficiently accomplished. He hesitated between 
this awakened mercy and his dormant hate. 

“ I can annihilate him commercially,” he thought; 
-“I have the power of life or death over him, — over his 
wife who insulted me, and his daughter whose hand 
once seemed to me a fortune. I have got his money ; 
suppose I content myself with letting the poor fool 
swim at the end of a line I’ll hold for him?” 

Honest minds are devoid of tact ; their excellence is 
uncalculating, even unreflecting, because they are wholly 
without evasions or mental reservations of their own. 
Birotteau now brought about his downfall ; he incensed 
the tiger, pierced him to the heart without knowing it, 
made him implacable by a thoughtless word, a eulogy, 
a virtuous recognition, — by the kind-heartedness, as it 
were, of his own integrity. When the cashier entered, 
du Tillet motioned him to take notice of Cesar. 

“ Monsieur Legras, bring me ten thousand francs, 
and a note of hand for that amount, drawn to m3' order, 
at ninety days’ sight, by monsieur, who is Monsieur 
Cesar Birotteau, you know.” 


268 


Cizar Birotteau, 


Du Tillet cut the pS-t^, poured out a glass of claret, 
and urged Cesar to eat. The poor man felt he was 
saved, and gave wa}^ to convulsive laughter ; he played 
with his watch-chain, and only put a mouthful into his 
mouth, when du Tillet said to him, “ You are not eat- 
ing ! ” Birotteau thus betrayed the depths of the abyss 
into which du Tillet's hand had plunged him, from 
which that hand now withdrew him, and into which 
it had the power to plunge him again. When the cash- 
ier returned, and Cesar signed the note, and felt the ten 
bank-notes in his pocket, he was no longer master of 
himself. A moment sooner, and the Bank, his neighbor- 
hood, every one, was about to know that he could not 
meet his payments, and he must have told his ruin to 
his wife ; now, all was safe ! The joy of this deliver- 
ance equalled in its intensity the tortures of his peril. 
The eyes of the poor man moistened, in spite of 
himself. 

“What is the matter, my dear master?” asked du 
Tillet. “ Would you not do for me to-morrow what I 
do for you to-day ? Is it not as simple as saying. How 
do you do ? ” 

“ Du Tillet,” said the worthy man, with gravity and 
emphasis, and rising to take the hand of his former 
clerk, “ I give you back my esteem.” 

“ What! had I lost it?” cried du Tillet, so vio- 
lently stabbed in the very bosom of his prosperity that 
the color came into his face. 

“Lost? — well, not precisely,” said Birotteau, thun- 
der-struck at his own stupidity ; “ they told me certain 
things about your liaison with Madame Roguin. The 
devil ! taking the wife of another man — ” 


Ci%ar Birotteau. 


269 


“You are beating round the bush, old fellow,** 
thought du Tillet, and as the words crossed his mind 
he came back to his original project, and vowed to 
bring that virtue low, to trample it under foot, to 
render despicable in the marts of Paris the honorable 
and virtuous merchant who had caught him, red-handed, 
in a theft. All hatreds, public or private, from woman 
to woman, from man to man, have no other cause than 
some such detection. People do not hate each other 
for injured interests, for wounds, not even for a blow ; 
all such wrongs can be redressed. But to have been 
seized, flagrante delicto^ in a base act ! The duel 
which follows between the criminal and the witness of 
his crime ends only with the death of the one or of the 
other. 

“Oh! Madame Roguin I *' said du Tillet, jestingly, 
“ don’t 3’ou call that a feather in a }’Oung man’s cap? 
I understand 3^ou, my dear master ; somebod3^ has told 
you that she lent me money. Well, on the contrar3" it 
is I who have protected her fortune, which was strangel3' 
involved in her husband’s affairs. The origin of my 
fortune is pure, as I have just told 3"Ou. I had nothing, 
you know. Young men are sometimes in positions of 
frightful necessit3". They ma3" lose their self-control 
in the depths of povert3", and if the3’ make, as the Re- 
public made, forced loans — well, they pa3" them bacK ; 
and in so doing they are more honest than France 
herself.” 

“ That is true,” cried Birotteau. “ My son, Gk)d — 
is it not Voltaire who sa3"s, — 

“ * He rendered repentance the virtue of mortals’ ? 


270 


C6mr Birotteau. 


“ Provided,” answered du Tillet, stabbed afresh by 
this quotation, — “ provided they do not carrj’ off the 
property of their neighbors, basely, meanly ; as, for ex- 
ample, you would do if you failed within three months, 
and my ten thousand francs went to perdition.” 

“I fail ! ” cried Birotteau, who had taken three glasses 
of wine, and was half-drunk with 303*. “ Ever3’bod3" 

knows what I think about failure ! Failure is death to 
a merchant ; I should die of it ! ” 

“ I drink your health,” said du Tillet. 

“ Your health and prosperity,” returned Cesar. 
“Why don’t 3-00 buy your perfumer3' from me? ” 
The fact is,” said du Tillet, “ I am afraid of Madame 
Cesar ; she alwa3's made an impression on me. If you 
had not been m3’ master, on my word ! I — ” 

“ You are not the first to think her beautiful ; others 
have desired her; but she loves me! Well, now, du 
Tillet, m3’ friend,” resumed Birotteau, “ don’t do things 
by halves.” 

“ What is it? ” 

Birotteau explained the affair of the lands to his 
former clerk, who pretended to open his eyes wide, 
and complimented the perfumer on his perspicacity and 
penetration, and praised the enterprise. 

“ Well, I am very glad to have 3’our approbation; 
you are thought one of the wise-heads of the banking 
business, du Tillet. Dear fellow, 3^ou might get me a 
credit at the Bank of France, so that I can wait for the 
profits of Cephalic Oil at m3’ ease.” 

“ I can give you a letter to the firm of Nucingen,” 
answered du Tillet, perceiving that he could make his 
victim dance all the figures in the reel of bankruptcy. 


Ci^ar Birotteau. 


271 


Ferdinand sat down to his desk and wrote the follow- 
ing letter : — 

To Monsieur le baron de Nucingen : 

My dear Baron, — The bearer of this letter is Monsieur 
C^sar Birotteau, deputy-mayor of the second arrondissement, 
and one of the best known manufacturers of Parisian per- 
fumery ; he wishes to have business r^^ations with your house. 
You can confidently do all that he jisks of you; and in oblig- 
ing him you will oblige 

Your friend, 

F. Du Tillet. 

Du Tillet did not dot the i in his signature. To those 
with whom he did business this intentional error was a 
sign previously agreed upon. The strongest recommen- 
dations, the warmest appeals contained in the letter 
were to mean nothing. All such letters, in which ex- 
clamation marks were suppliants and du Tillet placed 
himself, as it were, upon his knees, were to be consid- 
ered as extorted (by necessity; he could not refuse to 
write them, but ^he^" were to be regarded as not written. 
Seeing the i wi^liout a dot, the correspondent was to 
amuse the petitibuer with empt3" promises. Even men 
of the world, a .id sometimes the most distinguished, 
are thus gulled -like children b}’ business men, bankers, 
and law3’ei’s, vho all have a double signature, — one 
dead, the other living. The cleverest among them are 
fooled in tHs wa3\ To understand the trick, we must 
experience ihe two-fold effects of a warm letter and 
a cold one 

“ You bive saved me, du Tillet! ” said Cesar, read- 
ing the letter. 

“Thank heaven!” said du Tillet, “ask for what 


272 


Cimr Birotteau. 


money you want. When Nucingen reads my lettei he 
will give you all you need. Unhappily, my own funds 
are tied 'up for a few days ; if not, I certainly would not 
send yoii to Uie gi’eat banking princes. The Kellers are 
mere pygmies C(,mpared with Baron de Nucingen. Law 
reappears on eartt in Nucingen. With this letter of 
mine you can face th^ 15th of January, and after that, 
we will see about it. Nucingen and I are the best 
friends in the world ; ht would not disoblige me for a 
million.” 

“It is a guarantee in J-self,” thought Birotteau, as 
he went away full of gratituo. to his old clerk. “ Well, 
a benefit is never lost!” he continued, philosophizing 
very wide of the mark. Nevertheless, one thought 
embittered his joy. For several days he had prevented 
his wife from looking into the ledgers ; he put the busi- 
ness on C^lestin’s shoulders and agisted in it himself; 
he wished, apparently, that his vife and daughter 
should be at liberty to take full enjjymgjjt out of the 
beautiful appartement he had give. them. But the 
first flush of happiness over, Madame Birotteau would 
have died rather than renounce her rig^t of personally 
inspecting the affairs of the house, — f holding, as she 
phrased it, the handle of the frying^^^. Birotteau 
was at his wits’ end ; he had used all ds cunning in 
trying to hide from his wife the symptom hig embar- 
rassment. Constance strongly disapprove of sending 
round the bills ; she had scolded the clerks^nd accused 
C^lestin of wishing to ruin the establishm.j|;^ thinking 
that it was all his doing. Celestin, by Biroti^u’g order 
had allowed himself to be scolded. In the^ygg 
clerks Madame Cesar governed her husband for though 


Cizar Birotteau. 


273 


it is possible to deceive the public, the inmates of a 
household are never deceived as to who exercises the 
real authorit3^ Birotteau knew that he must now re- 
veal his real situation to his wife, for the account with 
du Tillet needed an explanation. When he got back to 
the shop, he saw, not without a shudder, that Constance 
was sitting in her old place behind the counter, examin- 
ing the expense account, and no doubt counting up the 
money in the desk. 

“How will 3^011 meet your pa3’ments to-morrow?” 
she whispered as he sat down beside her. 

“With mone3",” he answered, pulling out the bank- 
bills, and signing to C 41 estin to take them. 

“ Where did 3’ou get that money?” 

“I’ll tell 3’ou all about it this evening. Celestin, 
write down, ‘ Last of March, note for ten thousand 
francs, to du Tillet’s order.’ ” 

“ Du Tillet! ” repeated Constance, struck with con- 
sternation. 

“ I am going to see Popinot,” said Cesar ; “ it is very 
wrong in me not to have gone before. Have we sold 
his oil?” 

“ The three hundred bottles he sent us are all gone.” 

“Birotteau, don’t go out; I want to speak to 3’ou,” 
said Constance, taking him by the arm, and leading him 
into her bedroom with an impetuosity which would have 
caused a laugh under other circumstances. “Du 
Tillet,” she said, when she had made sure no one but 
Cesarine was with them, — “ du Tillet, who robbed us 
of three thousand francs ! So you are doing business 
with du Tillet, — a monster, who wished to seduce me,’' 
she whispered in his ear. 


18 


274 


CSsar Birottean, 


“ Folly of youth,” said Birotteau, assuming for the 
nonce the tone of a free-thinker. 

“Listen to me, Birotteau! You are ail upset; you 
don’t go to the manufactory any more ; there is some- 
thing the matter, I feel it ! You must tell me ; I must 
know what it is.” 

“ Well,” said Birotteau, “ we came very near being 
ruined, — we were ruined this verj" morning; but it is 
all safe now.” 

And he told the horrible story of his two weeks* 
misery. 

“ So that was the cause of your illness 1 ” exclaimed 
Constance. 

“Yes, mamma,** cried Cesarine, “ and papa has been 
so courageous ! All that I desire in life is to be loved 
as he loves you. He has thought only of your grief.” 

“My dream is fulfilled!” said the poor woman, 
dropping upon the sofa at the corner of the fireplace, 
pale, livid, terrified. “ I foresaw it all. I warned you 
on that fatal night, in our old room which you pulled 
to pieces, that we should have nothing left but our eyes 
to weep with. My poor Cesarine, I — ** 

“ Now, there you go ! ’* cried C^sar ; “ you will take 
away from me the courage I need.’* 

“ Forgive me, dear friend,” said Constance, taking 
his hand, and pressing it with a tenderness which went 
to the heart of the poor man. “ I do wrong. Mis- 
fortune has come ; I will be silent, resigned, strong 
to bear it. No, j^ou shall never hear a complaint 
from me.” She threw herself into his arms, weeping, 
and whispering, “Courage, dear friend, courage! I 
will have courage for both, if necessary.” 


(J4mr Birotteau, 


275 


** My oil, wife, — my oil will save us ! ” 

“ May God help us ! ” said Constance. 

“ Anselme will help my father,” said C^sarine. 

“ I’ll go and see him,” cried C^sar, deeply moved by 
the passionate accents of his wife, who after nineteen 
years of married life was not yet fully known to him. 
“ Constance, fear nothing ! Here, read du Tillet’s 
letter to Monsieur de Nucingen ; we are sure to obtain 
a credit. Besides,” he said, allowing himself a neces- 
sary lie, “ there is our uncle Pillerault ; that is enough 
to give us courage.” 

“ If that were all ! ” said Constance, smiling. 

Birotteau, relieved of a heavy weight, walked away 
like a man suddenly set at liberty, though he felt within 
him that indefinable sinking which succeeds great moral 
struggles in which more of the nervous fluid, more of 
the will is emitted than should be spent at one time, and 
by which, if we may say so, the capital of the existence 
is drawn upon. Birotteau had aged already. 

The house of A. Popinot, Rue des Cinq-Diamants, 
had undergone a great change in two months. The shop 
was repainted. The shelves, re-varnished and gilded and 
crowded with bottles, rejoiced the eye of those who had 
eyes to see the symptoms of prosperity. The floors 
were littered with packages and wrapping-paper. The 
storerooms held small casks of various oils, obtained 
for Popinot on commission by the devoted Gaudissart. 
The ledgers, the accounts, and the desks were moved 
into the rooms above the shop and the back-shop. An 
old cook did all the household work for the master and 
his three clerks. Popinot, penned up in a corner of 


276 


CSsar Birotteau, 


the shop closed in with glass, might be seen in a serge 
apron and long sleeves of green linen, with a pen be- 
hind his ear, in the midst of a mass of papers, where 
in fact Birotteau now found him, as he was overhauling 
his letters full of proposals and checks and orders. At 
the words “ He}", my boy !” uttered by his old master, 
Popinot raised his head, locked up his cubby hole, and 
came forward with a joyous air and the end of his nose 
a little red. There was no fire in the shop, and the door 
was always open. 

“ I feared you were never coming,” he said respect- 
fully. 

The clerks crowded round to look at the distinguished 
perfumer, the decorated deput3"-ma3’or, the partner of 
their own master. Birotteau, so pitifull}" small at the 
Kellers, felt a craving to imitate those magnates ; he 
stroked his chin, rose on his heels with native self- 
complacency, and talked his usual platitudes. 

“Hey, my ladl we get up early, don’t we?” he 
remarked. 

“No, for we don’t always go to bed,” said Popinot. 
“We must clutch success.” 

“What did I tell you? My oil will make your for- 
tune ! ” 

“ Yes, monsieur. But the means employed to sell it 
count for something. I have set your diamond well.” 

“ How do we stand? ” said Cesar. “ How far have 
you got ? What are the profits ? ” 

“Profits ! at the end of two months ! How can 3"ou 
expect it? Friend Gaudissart has onl}’^ been on the 
road for twenty -five days ; he took a post-chaise without 
sa3fing a word to me. Oh, he is devoted ! We owe ti 


Cimr Birotteau, 


277 


great deal to my uncle. The newspapers alone (here 
he whispered in Birotteau’s ear) will cost us twelve 
thousand francs.” 

“ Newspapers ! ” exclaimed the deputy-mayor. 

“ Have n’t you read them?” 

“ No.” 

“ Then you know nothing,” said Popinot. “Twenty 
thousand francs worth of placards, gilt frames, copies 
of the prospectus. One hundred thousand bottles 
bought. Ah, it is all paying through the nose at this 
moment! We are manufacturing on a grand scale. 
If you had set foot in the faubourg, where I often work 
all night, you would have seen a little nut-cracker which 
is n’t to be sneezed at, I can tell 3’ou. On my own ac- 
count, I have made, in the last five days, not less than 
ten thousand francs, merely by commissions on the sale 
of druggists’ oils.” 

“What a capable head!” said Birotteau, laying his 
hand on little Popinot’s thick hair and rubbing it about 
as if he were a baby. “ I found it out.” 

Several persons here came in. 

“ On Sunday we dine at your aunt Ragon’s,” added 
Cesar, leaving Popinot to go on with his business, for 
he perceived that the fresh meat he had come to taste 
was not yet cut up. 

“It is amazing! A clerk becomes a merchant in 
twenty-four hours,” thought Birotteau, who understood 
the happiness and self-assurance of Anselme as little as 
the dandy luxury of du Tillet. “Anselme put on a 
little stiff air when I patted him on the head, just as if 
he were Fran9ois Keller himself.” 

Birotteau never once reflected that the clerks were 


278 


CS%ar Birotteau, 


looking on, and that the master of the establishment 
had his dignity to preserve. In this instance, as in the 
case of his speech to du Tillet, the worth}” soul com- 
mitted a folly out of pure goodness of heart, and for 
lack of knowing how to withhold an honest sentiment 
vulgarly expressed. By this trifling act Cesar would 
have wounded irretrievably any other man than little 
Popinot. 

The Sunday dinner at the Eagon’s was destined to be 
the last pleasure of the nineteen happy years of the 
Birotteau household, — years of happiness that were 
full to overflowing. Ragon lived in the Rue du Petit- 
Bourbon-Saint-Sulpice, on the second floor of a digni- 
fied old house, in an appartement decorated with large 
panels where painted shepherdesses danced in panniers, 
before whom fed the sheep of our nineteenth century, 
the sober and serious bourgeoisie, — whose comical de- 
meanor, with their respectful notions about the nobility, 
and their devotion to the Sovereign and the Church, 
were all admirably represented by Ragon himself. The 
furniture, the clocks, linen, dinner-service, all seemed 
patriarchal ; novel in form because of their very age. 
The salon, hung with old damask and draped with cur- 
tains in brocatelle, contained portraits of duchesses and 
other royalist tributes ; also a superb Popinot, sheriff of 
Sancerre, painted by Latour, — the father of Madame 
Ragon, a worthy, excellent man, in a picture out of 
which he smiled like a parvenu in all his glory. When 
at home, Madame Ragon completed her natural self 
with a little King Charles spaniel, which presented a 
surprisingly harmonious effect as it lay on the hard 


CSsar Birotteau, 279 

little sofa, rococo in shape, that assuredly never played 
the part assigned to the sofa of Crebillon. 

Among their many virtues, the Ragons were noted 
for the possession of old wines which had come to per- 
fect mellowness, and for certain of Madame Anfoux’s 
liqueurs, which certain persons, obstinately (though it 
was said hopelessly) bent on making love to Madame 
Ragon, had brought her from the West Indies. Thus 
their little dinners were much prized. Jeannette, the old 
cook, took care of the aged couple with blind devotion : 
she would have stolen the fruit to make their sweet- 
meats. Instead of taking her money to the savings- 
bank, she put it judiciously into lotteries, hoping that 
some day she could bestow a good round sum on her 
master and mistress. On the appointed Sunda3’s when 
they received their guests, she was, despite her years, 
active in the kitchen to superintend the dishes, which 
she served at the table with an agility that (to use a 
favorite expression of the worthy Ragon) might have 
given points to Mademoiselle Contat when she played 
Susanne in the “ Mariage de Figaro.” 

The guests on this occasion were Popinot the judge, 
Pillerault, Anselme, the three Birotteau s, three Mati- 
fats, and the Abbe Loraux. Madame Matifat, whom 
we lately met crowned with a turban for the ball, now 
wore a gown of blue velvet, with coarse cotton stock- 
ings, leather shoes, gloves of chamois-skin with a 
border of green plush, and a bonnet lined with pink, 
filled in with white puffs about the face. These ten 
personages assembled at five o’clock. The old Ragons 
always requested their guests to be punctual. When 
this worth}' couple were invited out, their hosts always 


280 


CSmr Birotteau, 


put the dinner at the same hour, remembering’ that 
stomachs which were sixty-five years old could not 
adapt themselves to the novel hours recently adopted 
in the great world. 

Cesarine was sure that Madame Ragon would place 
her beside Anselme ; for all women, be they fools or 
saints, know what is what in love. The daughter of 
“ The Queen of Roses ” therefore dressed with the inten- 
tion of turning Popinot’s head. Her mother — having 
renounced, not without pain, the thought of marrjdng 
her to Crottat, who to her eyes played the part of heir- 
apparent — assisted, with some bitter thoughts, at the 
toilet. Maternal forethought lowered the modest gauzy 
neckerchief to show a little of C^sarine’s shoulders and 
the spring of her graceful throat, which was remark- 
ably elegant. The Grecian bodice, crossed from left 
to right with five folds, opened slightly, showing deli- 
cious curves ; the gray merino dress with green furbe- 
lows defined the pretty waist, which had never looked 
so slender nor so supple. She wore earrings of gold 
fret-work, and her hair, gathered up a la chinoise, let 
the eye take in the soft freshness of a skin traced with 
blue veins, where the light shone chastely on the pure 
white tones. Cesarine was so coquettishly lovely that 
Madame Matifat could not help admitting it, without, 
however, perceiving that mother and daughter had the 
one purpose of bewitching Anselme. 

Neither Birotteau, his wife, Madame Matifat nor any 
of the others disturbed the sweet converse which the 
young people, thrilling with love, held in whispering 
voices within the embrasure of a window, through whose 
chinks the north wind blew its chilly whistle. The con- 


CSsar Birotteau, 


281 


versation of the elders became animated when Popinot 
the judge let fall a word about Roguin’s flight, remarking 
that he was the second notary who had absconded, — a 
crime formerly unknown. Madame Ragon, at the word 
Roguin, touched her brother’s foot, Pillerault spoke 
loudly to drown his voice, and both made him a sign to 
remember Madame Birotteau. 

“ I know all,” said Constance in a low, pained voice. 

“ Well, then,” said Madame Matifat to Birotteau, who 
humbly bowed his head, “ how much did he carry oflT ? 
If we are to believe the gossips, j^ou are ruined.” 

“ He had two hundred thousand francs of mine,” 
said Cesar. “As to the forty thousand he pretended 
to make me borrow from one of his clients^ whose 
property he had already squandered, I am now bringing 
a suit to recover them.” 

“The case will be decided this week,” said Popinot. 
“I thought you would not be unwilling that I should 
explain your situation to Monsieur le president ; he has 
ordered that all Roguin’s papers be submitted to the 
custody of the court, so as to ascertain the exact time 
when Roguin made away with the funds of his client, 
and thus verify the facts alleged by Derville, who made 
the argument himself to save you the expense.” 

“Shall we win?” asked Madame Birotteau. 

“I don’t know,” answered Popinot. “Though I 
belong to the court in which the suit is brought, I shall 
abstain from giving an opinion, even if called upon.” 

‘ ‘ Can there be any doubt in such a simple case ? ” 
said Pillerault. “ Such deeds make mention that pay- 
ment has been made, and notaries are obliged to declare 
that they have seen the money passed from the lender 


282 


CSsar Birotteau, 


to the borrower. Eoguin would be sent to the galleys 
if the law could get hold of him.” 

“ According to my idea,” said the judge, “ the lender 
ought to have sued Roguin for the costs and the 
caution-money ; but it sometimes happens at the Cour 
Royale that in matters even more plain than this the 
judges stand six against six.” 

“Mademoiselle, what are they sa^dng? Has Mon- 
sieur Roguin absconded?” said Anselm e, hearing at 
last what was going on about him. “Monsieur said 
nothing of it to me, — to me who would shed my blood 
for him — ” 

Cesarine fully understood that the whole family 
were included in the for him ; ” for if the innocent girl 
could mistake the accent, she could not misunderstand 
the glance, which wrapped her, as it were, in a rosy 
flame. 

“ I know you would ; I told him so. He hid every- 
thing from my mother, and confided only in me.” 

“You spoke to him of me?” said Popinot; “you 
have read my heart? Have you read all that is there? ” 

“ Perhaps.” 

“ I am very happy,” said Popinot. “If you would 
lighten all my fears — in a year I shall be so prosper- 
ous that your father cannot object when I speak to him 
of our marriage. From henceforth I will sleep only five 
hours a night.” 

“ Do not injure yourself,” said Cesarine, with an in- 
expressible accent and a look in which Popinot was 
suflered to read her thoughts. 

“ Wife,” said Cesar, as they rose from table, “ 1 
think those young people love each other.” 


Ci%ar Birotteau, 


283 


“ Well, so much the better,” said Constance, in a 
grave voice ; “ my daughter will be the wife of a man 
of sense and energy. Talent is the best dower a man * 
can offer.” ^ 

She left the room hastily and went to Madame 
Ragon’s bedchamber. Cesar during the dinner had 
made various fatuous remarks, which caused the judge 
and Pillerault to smile, and reminded the unhappy wo- 
man of how unfitted her poor husband was to grapple 
with misfortune. Her heart was full of tears ; and she 
instinctively dreaded du Tillet, for every mother knows 
the Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes^ even if she does 
not know Latin. Constance wept in the arms of Madame 
Ragon and her daughter, though she would not tell them 
the cause of her distress. 

“ I am nervous,” she said. 

The rest of the evening was spent by the elders at the 
card-table, and by the 3^oung people in those little games 
called innocent because they cover the innocent b^^-play 
of bourgeois love. The Matifats joined in these games. 

“Cesar,” said Constance as they drove home, “go 
and see Monsieur le Baron de Nucingen on the 8th so as 
to be sure of having your payments ready in advance of 
the 15th. If there should be any hitch, how could you 
scrape the money together if you have only one day to 
do it in ? ” 

“ 1 will see to it, wife,” said Cesar, pressing his wife’s 
hand and his daughter’s, adding, “Ah, my dear white 
lambs, I have given you a sad New Year’s gift ! ” 

The two women, unable to see him in the obscurity 
of the hackney coach, felt his tears falling hot upon 
their hands. 


284 


CSsar Birotteau, 


“ Be hopeful, dear friend,” said Constance. 

“ All will go well, papa ; Monsieur Anselme Popinot 
' told me he would shed his blood for you.” 

“ For me? ” said Cesar, trying to speak gayly ; “ and 
for the family as well. Is n’t it so ? ” 

Cesariiie pressed her father’s hand, as if to let him 
know she was betrothed to Anselme. 


V4sar Birotteau, 


286 


IV. 

During the first three days of the j^ear, two hundred 
visiting cards were sent to Birotteau. This rush of fic- 
titious friendship, these empty testimonials of favor, are 
horrible to those who feel themselves drawn down into 
the vortex of misfortune. Birotteau presented himself 
three times at the hotel of the famous banker, the Baron 
de Nuciugen, but in vain. The opening of the year 
with all its festivities sufficientlj’ explained the absence 
of the financier. On the last occasion Birotteau got as 
far as the oflSce of the banker, where the head-clerk, a 
German, told him that Monsieur de Nucingen had re- 
turned at five in the morning from a ball at the Kellers*, 
and would not be visible until half-past nine o’clock. 
Birotteau had the luck to interest this man in his affairs, 
and remained talking with him more than half an hour. 
In the course of the afternoon this prime minister of the 
house of Nucingen wrote Birotteau that the baron would 
receive him the next daj", 13th, at noon. Though every 
hour brought its drop of absinthe, the day went by with 
frightful rapidity. C^sar took a hackne}- coach, but 
stopped it several paces distant from the hotel, whose 
courtyard was crowded with carriages. The poor man’s 
heart sank within him when he saw the splendors of 
that noted house. 

“And yet he has failed twice,” he said to himself as 
he went up a superb staircase banked with fiowers, and 


286 


CSsar Birotteau. 


crossed the sumptuous rooms which helped to make 
Madame Delphine de Nucingen famous in the Chaussee 
d’Antin. The baronne’s ambition was to rival the 
great ladies of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, to whose 
houses she was not as yet admitted. The baron was 
breakfasting with his wife. In spite of the crowd which 
was waiting for him in the counting-room, he had left 
word that any friend of du Tibet was to be admitted. 
Birotteau trembled with hope as he noticed the change 
which the baron’s order had wrought in the hitherto 
insolent manner of the footman. 

“ Bardon me, my tear,” said the baron to his wife, in 
a strong German accent, as he rose and nodded to Bi- 
rotteau, “ monsieur is a goot royalist, and der intimate 
frient of tu Tibet. Bezides, monsieur is debudy-mayor 
of der zecond arrondissement, and gifs palls of Aziatigue 
magnifissence ; so vib j^ou mak his acquentence mit 
blaysure.” 

“ I should be delighted to take lessons from Madame 
Birotteau, for Ferdinand — ” 

“ She cabs him Ferdinand ! ” thought Cesar. 

— “ spoke of the ball with great admiration, which 
is all the more valuable because he usually admires 
nothing. Ferdinand is a harsh critic ; in his eyes 
everything ought to be perfect. Shall you soon give 
another ball?” she inquired affably. 

“ Madame, poor people, such as we are, seldom have 
many amusements of that kind,” said the perfumer, not 
knowing whether she meant to ridicule him, or was 
merely paying an empty compliment. 

“ Monsieur Grindot suberintented der resdoration of 
your abbartement, I zink ? ” said the baron. 



P. 0 . Jeainiiot Coji^ri^ht 1856 bjr Roberts Bros ,■ Prooide Goupll 






CSsar Birotteau, 


287 


“Ah, Grindot! that nice little architect who has 
just returned from Eome,” said Delphine de Nucingen. 
“ I dote on him ; he makes delicious drawings in my 
album.” 

No culprit enduring the torments of hell in Venetian 
dungeons ever suffered more from the torture of the 
boot than Birotteau did, standing there in his ordinary 
clothes. He felt a sneer in every word. 

“ Vill you gif Oder little palls?” said the banker, with 
a searching look at the perfumer. “ You see all der 
vorld ist inderesded.” 

“ Will Monsieur Birotteau breakfast with us, without 
ceremony?” said Delphine, motioning towards the table 
which was sumptuously served. 

“Madame la baronne, I came on business, and I am — ” 

“ Yes, matame, vill you bermit us to speak of busi- 
ness?” 

Delphine made a little sign of assent, saying to her 
husband, “Are you going to buy perfumery?” The 
baron shrugged his shoulders and turned to Cesar, who 
trembled with anxiety. 

‘ ‘ Tu Tillet takes der graadest inderest in you,” he 
said. 

“ At last,” thought the poor man, “we ape coming to 
the point.” 

“His ledder gif you in my house a creydit vich is 
only limided by der limids of my privade fortune.” 

The exhilarating balm infused into the water offered 
by the angel to Hagar in the desert, must have been the 
same cordial which flowed through Cesar’s veins as he 
listened to these words. The wily banker retained the 
horrible pronunciation of the German Jews, — possibly 


288 


C 4 mr Birotteau. 


that he might be able to deny promises actually given, 
but only half-understood. 

“ You shall haf a running aggont. Ve vill broceed in 
dis vay — ” said this great and good and venerable 
financier, with Alsatian good-humor. 

Birotteau doubted no longer; he was a merchant, 
and knew very well that those who have no intention 
of rendering a service never enter into the details of 
executing it. 

“ I neet not tell you dat der Bank demands of all, 
graat and small alaike, dree zignatures. So denn, you 
traw a cheque to die order of our frient tu Tillet, and I 
vill sent it, same ta}’, to der Bank mit mein zignature ; 
so shall you haf, at four o’clock, der amount of die 
cheque you trew in der morning ; and at der costs of die 
Bank. I vill not receif a commission, no I I vill haf 
only der blaysure to be agreeaple to you. But I mak 
one condeetion,” he added, la3’ing his left finger lightlj" 
on his nose with an inimitably sly gesture. 

“ Monsieur le baron, it is granted on the spot,” said 
Birotteau, who thought it concerned some tithe to be 
levied on his profits. 

“ A condeetion to vich I attache der graatest imbor- 
tance, because I vish Matame de Nucingen should re- 
ceif, as she say, zom lessons from Matame Piroddt.” 

“Monsieur le baron! pray do not laugh at me, I 
entreat 3’ou.” 

“ Monsieur Pirddot,” said the financier, with a serious 
air, “it is denn agreet; you vill invite us to 3’our nex 
pall ? My vife is shalous ; she vish to see j’our abbarte- 
ment, of vich she hear so mooch.” 

“ Monsieur le baron I — ” 


Birotteau, 289 

“Oh! if you reffuse me, no creydit! Yes, I know 
der Prayfic of die Seine was at your las pall.” 

“ Monsieur le baron ! — ” 

“You had Pillartiere, shentelman of der betcham- 
ber ; goot royalist like you, who vas vounded at Zaint- 
Roqque — ” 

“ On the 13th Vendemiaire, Monsieur le baron.” 

“ Denn you hat Monsieur de Lazabed, Monsieur Fau- 
quelin of der Agatemi — ” 

“ Monsieur le baron ! — ” 

“Hey! der tefle ! dont pe zo humple, Monsieur der 
debudy-mayor ; I haf heard dat der king say dat your 
pall — ” 

“The king?” exclaimed Birotteau, who was destined 
to hear no more, for, at this moment, a young man 
entered the room familiarlj^, whose step, recognized 
from afar by the beautiful Delphine de Nucingen, 
brought the color to her cheek. 

“Goot morning, my tear te Marsay ; tak m}^ blace. 
Here is a crowd, zey tell me, waiting in der gounting- 
room. I know vy. Der mines of Wortschin bay a 
graat divitent ! I haf receifed die aggonts. You vill 
haf one hundert tousant francs, Matame de Nucingen, 
so can you buy chewels and oder tings to make you 
bretty, — as if you could be brettier ! ” 

“Good God! the Ragons sold their shares!” ex- 
claimed Birotteau. 

“Who are those persons?” asked the elegant de 
Marsa}", smiling. 

“ Egzactly,” said Monsieur de Nucingen, turning 
back when he was almost at the door. ‘ ‘ I zink dat 
dose persons — te Marsay, dis is Monsieur Pirdddt 
19 


290 


CSsar Birotteau, 


your berfumer, who gifs palls of a magnifissence druly 
Aziatigue, and whom der king has decoraded.” 

De Marsa}" lifted his eyeglass, and said, “ Ah ! true, I 
thought the face was not unknown to me. So 3^ou are 
going to perfume 3’our affairs with potent cosmetics, 
oil them with — ” 

“Ah ! dose Rakkons,” interrupted the baron, making 
a grimace expressive of disgust; “ de3' had an aggont 
mit us ; I fafored dem, and dey could haf made der for- 
tune, but dey would not wait one zingle da3^ longer.” 

“ Monsieur le baron ! ” cried Birotteau. 

The worth3’^ man thought his own prospects extremely 
doubtful, and without bowing to Madame de Nucingen, 
or to de Marsay, he hastily followed the banker. The 
baron was already on the staircase, and Birotteau caught 
him at the bottom just as he was about to enter the 
counting-room. As Nucingen opened the door he saw 
the despairing gesture of the poor creature behind 
him, who felt himself pushed off into a gulf, and said 
hastil3’, — 

“Veil, it is all agreet. See tu Tillet, and arranche 
it mit him.” 

Birotteau, thinking that de Marsa3^ might have some 
influence with Nucingen, ran back with the rapid it3^ of a 
swallow, and slipped into the dining-room where he had 
l^ft the baronne and the young man, and where Delphine 
was waiting for a cup of cafe a la creme. He saw that 
the coflee had been served, but the baronne and the 
dandy had disappeared. The footman smiled at the as- 
tonishment of the worth3" man, who SI0WI3" re- descended 
the stairs. Cesar rushed to du Tillet’ s, and was told 
that he had gone into the country with Madame Roguin. 


CSmr Birotteau, 


291 


He took a cabriolet, and paid the driver well to be taken 
rapidly to Nogent-sur-Marne. At Nogent-sur-Marne 
the porter told him that monsieur and madame had 
started for Paris. Birotteau returned home, shattered 
in mind and body. When he related his wild-goose 
chase to his wife and daughter he was amazed to find 
his Constance, usually perched like a bird of ill omen 
on the smallest commercial mishap, now giving him the 
tenderest consolation, and assuring him that everything 
would turn out well. 

The next morning, Birotteau mounted guard as early 
as seven o’clock before du Tillet’s door. He begged 
the porter, slipping ten francs into his hand, to put 
him in communication with du Tillet’s valet, and ob- 
tained from the latter a promise to show him in to his 
master the moment that du Tillet was visible : he slid 
two pieces of gold into the valet’s hand. By such little 
sacrifices and great humiliations, common to all courtiers 
and petitioners, he was able to attain his end. At 
half-past eight, just as his former clerk was putting on 
a dressing-gown, yawning, stretching, and shaking oflf 
the cobwebs of sleep, Birotteau came face to face with 
the tiger, hungry for revenge, whom he now looked 
upon as his only friend. 

“ Go on with your dressing,” said Birotteau. 

“ What do you want, my good Cesar ? said du 
Tillet. 

Cesar stated, with painful trepidation, the answer 
and requirements of Monsieur de Nucingen to the in- 
attentive ears of du Tillet, who was looking for the 
bellows and scolding his valet for the clumsy manner 
in which he had lighted the fire. 


292 


CSsar Birotteau, 


The valet listened. At first Cesar did not notice 
him ; when he did so he stopped short, confused, hue 
resumed what he was saying as du Tillet touched him 
with the spur exclaiming, “ Go on ! go on ! I am listen- 
ing to you.” 

The poor man’s shirt was wet ; his perspiration 
turned to ice as du Tillet looked fixedly at him, and he 
saw the silver-lined pupils of those eyes, streaked with 
threads of gold, which pierced to his very heart with a 
diabolical gleam. 

“ My dear master, the Bank has refused to take your 
notes which the house of Claparon passed over to 
Gigonnet not guaranteed. Is that my fault ? How is it 
that you, an old commercial judge, could commit such 
blunders? I am, first and foremost, a banker. I will 
give you my money, but I cannot risk having my signa- 
ture refused at the Bank. My credit is my life ; that is 
the case with all of us. Do you want money? ” 

“ Can you give me all I want? ” 

“ That depends on how much you owe. How much 
do you want?” 

“ Thirt}" thousand francs.” 

“ Are the chimney-bricks coming down on my head? ” 
exclaimed du Tillet, bursting into a laugh. 

C^sar, misled by the luxury about him, fancied it 
was the laugh of a man to whom the sum was a mere 
trifie ; he breathed again. Du Tillet rang the bell. 

“ Send the cashier to me.” 

“ He has not come, monsieur,” said the valet. 

“ These fellows take advantage of me 1 It is half- 
past eight o’clock, and he ought to have done a million 
francs’ worth of business by this time.” 


C^sar Birotteau. 


293 


Five minutes later Monsieur Legras came in. 

“ How much have we in the desk? ” 

“ Only twenty thousand francs. Monsieur gave or- 
ders to buy into the Funds to the amount of thirt}^ 
thousand francs cash, payable on the 15th.’' 

“ That’s true ; I am half-asleep still.” 

The cashier gave Birotteau a suspicious look as he 
left the room. 

“ If ti’uth were banished from this earth, she would 
leave her last word with a cashier,” said du Tillet. 
“ Have n’t you some interest with little Popinot, who has 
set up for himself ? ” he added, after a dreadful pause, 
in which the sweat rolled in drops from Cesar’s brow. 

“Yes,” he answered naively. “Do you think you 
could discount his signature for a large amount? ” 

“ Bring me his acceptances for fifty thousand francs, 
and I will get them discounted for you at a reasonable 
rate by old Gobseck, who is very easy to deal with 
when he has funds to invest ; and he has some now.” 

Birotteau went home broken-hearted, not perceiving 
that the bankers were tossing him from one to the 
other like a shuttle-cock; but Constance had already 
guessed that credit was unattainable. If three bankers 
refused it, it was very certain that they had inquired of 
each other about so prominent a man as a deputy- 
mayor ; and there was, consequently, no hope from the 
Bank of France. 

“ Try to renew your notes,” she said ; “go and see 
Monsieur Claparon, your copartner, and all the others 
to whom you gave notes for the 15th, and ask them to 
renew. It will be time enough to go to the money- 
lenders with Popinot’s paper if that fails.” 


294 


CSsar Birotteau. 


“ To-morrow is the 13th,’’ said Birotteau, completely 
crushed. 

In the language of his own prospectus, he enjoyed a 
sanguine temperament, which was subject to an enor- 
mous waste through emotions and the pressure of 
thought, and imperativel 3 ’ demanded sleep to repair it. 
Cesarine took her father into the salon and played to 
him “Rousseau’s Dream,” — a pretty piece of music 
by Herold ; while Constance sat sewing beside him. 
The poor man laid his head on a cushion, and every 
time he looked up at his wife he saw a soft smile upon 
her lips ; and thus he fell asleep. 

“ Poor man ! ” said Constance ; “ what misery is in 
store for him ! God grant he may have strength to 
bear it ! ” 

“Oh! what troubles you, mamma?” said Cesarine, 
seeing that her mother was weeping. 

“Dear daughter, I see a failure coming. If your 
father is forced to make an assignment, we must ask no 
one’s pity. My child, be prepared to become a simple 
shop-girl. If I see you accepting your life coura- 
geously, I shall have strength to begin my life over 
again. I know your father, — he will not keep back 
one farthing ; I shall resign my dower ; all that we pos- 
sess will be sold. My child, you must take your jewels 
and your clothes to-morrow to your uncle Pillerault ; 
for you are not bound to any sacrifice.” 

Cesarine was seized with a terror beyond control as 
she listened to these words, spoken with religious sim- 
plicity. The thought came into her mind to go and see 
Anselme ; but her native delicacy checked it. 

On the morrow, at nine o’clock, Birotteau, following 


Cimr Birotteau, 


295 


his wife’s advice, went to find Claparon in the Rue de 
Provence, in the grasp of anxieties quite other than 
those through which he had lately passed. To ask for 
a credit is an ordinary business matter; it happens 
every day that those who undertake an enterprise are 
obliged to borrow capital ; but to ask for the renewal of 
notes is in commercial jurisprudence what the correc- 
tional police is to the court of assizes, — a first step 
toward bankruptcy, just as a misdemean/or leads to 
crime. The secret of 3'Our embarrassment is in other 
hands than 3’our own. A merchant delivers himself 
over, bound hand and foot, to another merchant ; and 
mercy is a virtue not practised at the Bourse. 

Cesar, who once walked the streets of Paris with his 
head high and his eye beaming with confidence, now, 
unstrung by perplexity, shrank from meeting Claparon ; 
he began to realize that a banker’s heart is mere 
viscera. Claparon had seemed to him so brutal in his 
coarse jollitj", and he had felt the man’s vulgarity so 
keenly, that he shuddered at the necessity of accosting 
him. 

“ But he is nearer to the people ; perhaps he will there» 
fore have more heart ! ” Such was the first reproachful 
word which the anguish of his position forced from 
Cesar’s lips. 

Birotteau drew upon the dregs of his courage, and 
went up the stairway" of a mean little entresol^ at whose 
windows he had caught a glimpse of green curtains ^’el- 
lowed by the sun. He read the word “ Offices,” stamped 
in black letters on an oval copper-plate ; he rapped, 
nobody’ answered, and he went in. The place, worse 
than humble, conveyed an idea of penurj", or avarice. 


296 


C6mr Birotteau, 


or neglect. No employe was to be seen behind the 
brass lattice which topped an unpainted white wooden 
enclosure, breast-high, within which were tables and 
desks in stained black wood. These deserted places 
were littered with inkstands, in which the ink was 
mould}" and the pens as rumpled as a ragamuffin’s 
head, and twisted like a sunfish ; with boxes and papers 
and printed matter, — all worthless, no doubt. The 
floor was as dirt}', defaced, and damp as that of a board- 
ing-house. The second room, announced by the word 
“ Counting-Room ” on its door, harmonized with the 
grim facetice of its neighbor. In one corner was a 
large space screened off by an oak balustrade, trellised 
with copper wire and furnished with a sliding cat-hole, 
within which was an enormous iron chest. This space, 
apparently given over to the rioting of rats, also con- 
tained an odd-looking desk, with a shabby arm-chair, 
which was ragged, green, and torn in the seat, — from 
which the horse-hair protruded, like the wig of its mas- 
ter, in half a hundred libertine curls. The chief adorn- 
ment of this room, which had evidently been the salon 
of the appartement before it was converted into a bank- 
ing-office, was a round table covered with a green 
cloth, round which stood a few old chairs of black 
leather with tarnished gilt nails. The flreplace, some- 
what elegant, showed none of the sooty marks of a fire ; 
the hearth was clean ; the mirror, covered with fly- 
specks, had a paltry air, in keeping with a mahogany 
clock bought at the sale of some old notary, which 
annoyed the eye, already depressed by two candela- 
bras without candles and the sticky dust that covered 
them. The wall-paper, mouse-gray with a pink border, 


CSsar Birotteau, 


297 


revealed, by certain fuliginous stains, the unwholesome 
presence of smokers. Nothing ever more faithfully 
represented that prosaic precinct called by the news- 
papers an “ editorial sanctum.” Birotteau, fearing 
that he might be indiscreet, knocked sharply three 
times on the door opposite to that by which he 
entered. 

“Come in!” cried Claparon, the reverberation of 
whose voice revealed the distance it had to traverse 
and the emptiness of the rpom, — in which Cesar heard 
the crackling of a good fire, though the owner was ap- 
parently not there. 

The room was, in truth, Claparon's private ofiSce. 
Between the ostentatious reception-room of FranQois 
Keller and the untid}" abode of the counterfeit banker, 
there was all the difierence that exists between Versailles 
and the wigwam of a Huron chief. Birotteau had wit- 
nessed the splendors of finance ; he was n-^w to see its 
fooleries. Lying in bed, in a sort of oblong recess or den 
opening from the farther end of the ofiSce, and where 
the habits of a slovenly life had spoiled, dirtied, greased, 
torn, defaced, obliterated, and ruined furniture which 
had been elegant in its day, Claparon, at the entrance 
of Birotteau, wrapped his filthy dressing-gown around 
him, laid down his pipe, and drew together the curtains 
of the bed with a haste which made even the innocent 
perfumer suspect his morals. 

“ Sit down, monsieur,” said the make-believe banker. 

Claparon, without his wig, his head wrapped up in a 
bandanna handkerchief twisted awry, seemed all the 
more hideous to Birotteau because, when the dressing- 
gown gaped open, he saw an undershirt of knitted wool. 


298 


Ci%ar Birotteau, 


once white, but now yellowed by wear indefinitely 
prolonged. 

“Will you breakfast with me?” said Claparon, recol- 
lecting the perfumer’s ball, and tliinking to make him a 
return and also to put him off the secret by this invi- 
tation. 

Cesar now perceived a round table, hastily cleared of 
its litter, which bore testimony to the presence of jovial 
company by a pate, oysters, white wine, and vulgar kid- 
neys, sautes au vin de champagne^ sodden in their own 
sauce. The light of a charcoal brazier gleamed on an 
omelette aux truffes. 

Two covers and two napkins, soiled by the supper of 
the previous night, might have enlightened the purest 
innocence. Claparon, thinking himself very clever, 
pressed his invitation in spite of Cesar’s refusal. 

“I was to have had a guest, but that guest has dis- 
appointed me,” said the crafty traveller, in a voice 
likely to reach a person buried under coverlets. 

“ Monsieur,” said Birotteau, “ I came solely on busi- 
ness, and I shall not detain you long.” 

“I’m used up,” said Claparon, pointing to the desk 
and the tables piled with documents ; “ they don’t leave 
me a poor miserable moment to m3’self ! I don’t re- 
ceive people except on Saturda3's. But as for you, my 
dear friebd, I ’ll see y^ou at any time. I have n’t a mo- 
ment to love or to loaf ; I have lost even the inspiration 
of business ; to catch its vim one must have the sloth 
of ease. Nobody^ ever sees me now on the boulevard 
doing nothing. Bah! I’m sick of business; I don’t 
want to talk about business ; I ’ve got money enough,* 
but I never can get enough happiness. My gracious I 


CSsar Birotteau. 


299 


I want to travel, — to see Italy ! Oh, that dear Italy ! 
beautiful in spite of all her reverses ! adorable land, 
where I shall no doubt encounter some angel, comply- 
ing yet majestic ! I have always loved Italian women. 
Did you ever have an Italian woman yourself? No? 
Then come with me to Italy. We will see Venice, the 
abode of doges, — unfortunately fallen into those intel- 
ligent Austrian hands that know nothing of art ! Bah ! 
let us get rid of business, canals, loans, and peaceful 
governments. I’m a good fellow when I’ve got my 
pockets lined. Thunder ! let ’s travel.” 

“ One word, monsieur, and I will release 3’ou,” said 
Birotteau. You made over my notes to Monsieur 
Bidault.” 

‘‘You mean Gigonnet, that good little Gigonnet, 
easy-going — ” 

“Yes,” said Cesar ; “ but I wish, — and here I count 
upon your honor and delicacy, — ” 

Claparon bowed. 

“ — to renew those notes.” 

“ Impossible ! ” snapped the banker. “I’m not alone 
in the matter. We have met in council, — regular 
Chamber; but we all agreed like bacon in a frjing- 
pan. The devil ! we deliberated. Those lands about 
the Madeleine don’t amount to anything ; we are oper- 
ating elsewhere. Hey! n ^ were not 



Bourse 


involved in the Champs 


which they are going to finish, and in the quartier 
Saint-Lazare and at Tivoli, we shouldn’t be, as that 
fat Nucingen says, in peaseness at all. What’s the 
Madeleine to us? — a midge of a thing. Pr-r-r! We 
don’t play low, my good fellow,” he said, tapping 


800 


CSmr Birotteau, 


Birotteau on the stomach and catching him round the 
waist. “Come, let’s have our breakfast, and talk,” 
added Claparon, wishing to soften his refusal. 

‘ ‘ V ery good,” said Birotteau. ‘ ‘ So much the worse for 
the other guest,” he thought, meaning to make Claparon 
drunk, and to find out who were his real associates in 
an affair which began to look suspicious to him. 

“ All right ! Victoire ! ” called the banker. 

This call brought a regular Leonarde, tricked out 
like a fish-woman. 

“ Tell the clerks that I can’t see any one, — not even 
Nucingen, Keller, Gigonnet, and all the rest of them.” 

“ No one has come but Monsieur Lempereur.” 

“He can receive the great people,” said Claparon; 
“the small fr 3 ^ are not to get beyond the first room. 
The}^ are to say I ’m cogitating a great enterprise — in 
champagne.” 

To make an old commercial traveller drunk is an 
impossibility. C4sar mistook the elation of the man’s 
vulgarity when he attempted to sound his mind. 

“ That infamous Roguin is still connected with 3 'ou,” 
he began ; “ don’t 3 ’ou think you ought to write and tell 
him to assist an old friend whom he has compromised, 
— a man with whom he dined eveiy Sunday, and whom 
ne has known for twenty 3 ’ears ? ” 

“Roguin? A fool! his share is ours now. Don’t 
be worried, old fellow, all will go well. Pa}’ up on the 
15th, and after that we will see — I sa}’, we will see. 
Another glass of wine ? The capital does n’t concern 
me one atom ; pa}’ or don’t pay, I sha’ n’t make faces at 
you. I ’m only in the business for a commission on the 
sales, and for a share when the lands are converted into 


CSsar Birotteau, 


301 


money ; and it’s for that I manage the owners. Don’t 
you understand? You have got solid men behind you, 
so I ’m not afraid, my good sir. Nowadays, business is 
all parcelled out in portions. A single enterprise re- 
quires a combination of capacities. Go in with us; 
don’t potter with pomatum and perfumes, — rubbish ! 
rpbbish ! Shave the public ; speculate ! ” 

“ Speculation ! ” said Cesar, “ is that commerce?” 

“ It is abstract commerce,” said Claparon, — “ com- 
merce which won’t be developed for ten years to come, 
according to Nucingen, the Napoleon of finance ; com- 
merce by which a man can grasp the totality of frac- 
tions, and skim the profits before there are any. 
Gigantic idea! one way of pouring hope into pint 
cups, — in short, a new necromancy ! So far, we have 
only got ten or a dozen hard heads initiated into the 
cabalistic secrets of these magnificent combinations.” 

Cesar opened his eyes and ears, endeavoring to 
understand this composite phraseology. 

“Listen,” said Claparon, after a pause. “Such 
master-strokes need men. There ’s the man of genius 
who has n’t a sou — like all men of genius. Those fel- 
lows spend their thoughts and spend their mone}^ just 
as it comes. Imagine a pig rooting round a truffle- 
patch ; he is followed by a jolly fellow, a moneyed man, 
who listens for the grunt as piggy finds the succulent. 
Now, when the man of genius has found a good thing, 
the moneyed man taps him on the shoulder and says, 

‘ What have 3"Ou got there ? You are rushing into the 
fiery furnace, m}’ good fellow, and 3'ou have n’t the loins 
to run out again. There ’s a thousand francs ; just let 
me take it in hand and manage the aflTair.’ Very good ! 


302 


CSmr Birotteau, 


The banker then convokes the traders : ‘ My friends, 
let us go to work : write a prospectus ! Down with 
humbug ! ’ On that they get out the hunting-horns and 
shout and clamor, — ‘ One hundred thousand francs for 
five sous ! or five sous for a hundred thousand francs ! 
gold mines ! coal mines ! ’ In short, all the clap-trap of 
commerce. We buy up men of arts and sciences ; the 
show begins, the public enters ; it gets its money’s 
worth, and we get the profits. The pig is penned up 
with his potatoes, and the rest of us wallow in bank- 
notes. There it all is, my good sir. Come, go into 
the business with us. What would you like to be, — pig, 
buzzard, clown, or millionnaire ? Reflect upon it; I 
have now laid before you the whole theory of the mod- 
ern loan-system. Come and see me often ; you ’ll always 
find me a jovial, jolly fellow. French joviality — gayety 
and gi’avity, all in one — never injures business ; quite 
the contrary. Men who quafi* the sparkling cup are 
born to understand each other. Come, another glass 
of champagne ! it is good, I tell you ! It was sent to 
me from Epernay itself, by a man for whom I once 
sold quantities at a good price — I used to be in 
wines. He shows his gratitude, and remembers me 
in my prosperity ; very rare, that.” 

Birotteau, overcome by the frivolity and heedlessness 
of a man to whom the world attributed extreme depth 
and capacity, dared not question him any further. In 
the midst of his own haziness of mind produced by the 
champagne, he did, however, recollect a name spoken 
by du Tillet ; and he asked Claparon who Gobseck the 
banker was, and where he lived. 

“ Have you got as far as that? ” said Claparon. 


CSsar Birotteau. 


803 


“ Gobseck is a banker, just as the headsman is a doctor. 
The first word is ‘ fifty per cent ; ’ he belongs to the race 
of Harpagon ; he ’ll take canary birds at all seasons, 
fur tippets in summer, nankeens in winter. What secu- 
rities are you going to ofier him ? If you want him to 
take your paper without security you will have to deposit 
your wife, 3"our daughter, 3"our umbrella, eveiything 
down to 3’our hat-box, 3'our socks (don’t 3-ou go in for 
ribbed socks?), 3'Our shovel and tongs, and the very 
wood 3’ou ’ve got in the cellar ! Gobseck ! Gobseck ! i^ 
the name of virtuous foll3^, who told you to go to that 
commercial guillotine ? ” 

“ Monsieur du Tillet.” 

“ Ah ! the scoundrel, I recognize him ! We used to 
be friends. If we have quarrelled so that we don’t speak 
to each other, 3"Ou may depend upon it m3^ aversion to 
him is well-founded ; he let me read down to the bottom 
of his infamous soul, and he made me uncomfortable 
at that beautiful ball you gave us. I can’t stand his 
impudent airs — all because he has got a notary’s wife ! 
I could have countesses if I wanted them ; I sha’ n’t 
respect him any the more for that. Ah ! my respect is 
a princess who ’ll never give birth to such as he. But, 
I sa3", 3’’ou are a funn3^ fellow, old man, to flash us a 
ball like that, and two months after try to renew your 
paper ! You seem to have some go in 3"ou. Let’s do 
business together. You have got a reputation which 
would be ver3’^ useful to me. Oh ! du Tillet was born 
to understand Gobseck. Du Tillet will come to a bad 
end at the Bourse. If he is, as they say, the tool of 
old Gobseck, he won’t be allowed to go far. Gobseck 
sits in a corner of his web like an old spider who has 


304 CSsar Birotteau, 

travelled round the world. Sooner or later, ztit! the 
usurer will toss him ofT as I do this glass of wine. So 
much the better ! Du Tillet has played me a trick — 
oh ! a damnable trick.” 

At the end of an hour and a half spent in just such 
senseless chatter, Birotteau attempted to get away, 
seeing that the late commercial traveller was about to 
relate the adventure of a republican deputy of Marseilles, 
in love with a certain actress then playing the part of 
la belle Arsene, who, on one occasion, was hissed by 
a roj^alist crowd in the pit. 

“He stood up in his box,” said Claparon, “and 
shouted : ‘ Arrest whoever hissed her ! Eugh ! If it ’s 
a woman, I ’ll kiss her ; if it is a man, we ’ll see about 
it; if it’s neither the one nor the other, may God’s 
lightning blast it ! ’ Guess how it ended.” 

“Adieu, monsieur,” said Birotteau. 

“ You will have to come and see me,” said Clapa- 
ron ; “that first scrap of paper you gave Ca3Ton 
has come back to us protested ; I indorsed it, so 
I ’ve paid it. I shall send after you ; business before 
everything.” 

Birotteau felt stabbed to the heart b}^ this cold and 
grinning kindness as much as by the harshness of Keller 
or the coarse German banter of Nucingen. The famili- 
arit}" of the man, and his grotesque gabble excited hy 
champagne, seemed to tarnish the soul of the honest 
bourgeois as though he came from a house of financial 
ill-fame. He went down the stairway and found him- 
self in the streets without knowing where he was going. 
As he walked along the boulevards and reached the Rue 
Saint-Denis, he recollected Molineux, and turned into 


CSsar Birotteau, 


805 


the Cour Batave. He went up the dirty, tortuous stair- 
case which he once trod so proudl3\ He recalled to 
mind the mean and niggardly acrimony of Molineux, 
and he shrank from imploring his favor. The landlord 
was sitting in the chimney-corner, as on the occasion 
of C(^sar’s first visit, but his breakfast was now in 
process of digestion. Birotteau proffered his request. 

“Renew a note for twelve hundred francs?’^ said 
Molineux, with mocking incredulity. “ Have you got 
to that, monsieur,? If you have not twelve hundred 
francs to pay me on the 15th, do you intend to send back 
my receipt for the rent unpaid ? I shall be sorry ; but 
I have not the smallest civility in mone3"-matters, — my 
rents are m3' living. Without them how could I pa3' 
what I owe m3'self ? No merchant will den3' the sound- 
ness of that principle. Mone3' is no respecter of per- 
sons ; money has no ears, it has no heart. The winter 
is hard, the price of wood has gone up. If you don’t 
pay me on the 15th, a little summons will be served 
upon 3'ou at twelve o’clock on the 16th. Bah! the 
worthy Mitral, 3'our bailiff, is mine as well; he will 
send you the writ in an envelope, with all the con- 
sideration due to 3'our high position.” 

“ Monsieur, I have never received a summons in my 
life,” said Birotteau. 

“There is a beginning to everything,” said Molineux. 

Disma3'ed by the curt malevolence of the old man, 
C^sar was cowed ; he heard the knell of failure ringing 
in his ears, and every jangle woke a memory of the 
stern sayings his pitiless justice had uttered against 
bankrupts. His former opinions now seared, as with 
fire, the soft substance of his brain. 

20 


306 


C^%ar Birotteau. 


“ By the by,” said Molineux, “you neglected to put 
upon your notes, ‘ for value received in rental,’ which 
would secure me preference.” 

“ My position will prevent me from doing anything 
to the detriment of my creditors,” said Cesar, stunned 
by the sudden sight of the precipice yawning before 
him. 

“ Ver}" good, monsieur, very good ; I thought I knew 
everj'thing relating to rentals and tenants, but I have 
learned through you never to take notes in payment. 
Ah ! I shall sue 3^ou, for your answer shows plainly’ 
enough that you are not going to meet j’our liabilities. 
Hard cash is a matter which concerns every landlord 
in Paris.” 

Birotteau went out, weary of life. It is in the nature 
of such soft and tender souls to be disheartened by a first 
rebuff, just as a first success encourages them. Cesar 
no longer had an^’ hope except in the devotion of little 
Popinot, to whom his thoughts natural!}’ turned as he 
crossed the Marche des Innocents. 

“ Poor boy ! who could have believed it when I 
launched him, only six weeks ago, in the Tuileries?” 

It was just four o’clock, the hour at which the judges 
left their court-rooms. Popinot the elder chanced to 
go and see his nephew. This judge, whose mind was 
singularly acute on all moral questions, was also gifted 
with a second-sight which enabled him to discover secret 
intentions, to perceive the meaning of insignificant hu- 
man actions, the germs of crime, the roots of wrong- 
doing ; and he now watched Birotteau, though Birotteau 
was not aware of it. The perfumer, who was annoyed 
at finding the judge with his nephew, seemed to him 


Cimr Birotteau, 


807 


iiarassed, preoccupied, pensive. Little Popinot, always 
busy, with his pen behind his ear, lay down as usual 
flat on his stomach before the father of his Cesarine. 
The empty phrases which Cesar addressed to his partner 
seemed to the judge to mask some important request. 
Instead of going away, the crafty old man stayed in 
spite of his nephew’s evident desire, for he guessed that 
the perfumer would soon try to get rid of him by going 
awa}’ himself. Accordingly, when Birotteau went out 
the judge followed, and saw Birotteau hanging about 
that part of the Rue des Cinq-Diamants which leads 
into the Rue Aubr^’-le-Boucher. This trifling circum- 
stance roused the suspicions of old Popinot as to Cesar’s 
intentions ; he turned into the Rue des Lombards, and 
w'hen he saw the perfumer re-enter Anselme’s door, he 
came hastily back again. 

“ My dear Popinot,” said Cesar to his partner, “1 
have come to ask a service of you.” 

‘ ‘ What can I do ? ” cried Popinot with generous 
ardor. 

“ Ah! you save my life,” exclaimed the poor man, 
comforted by this warmth of heart which flamed upon 
the sea of ice he had traversed for twenty-five days. 

“You must give me a note for fifty thousand francs 
on my share of the profits ; we will arrange later about 
the payment.” 

Popinot looked fixedly at Cesar. Cesar dropped his 
ej'es. At this moment the judge re-entered. 

“My son — ah! excuse me, Monsieur Birotteau — 
Anselme, I forgot to tell you — ” and with an imperious 
gesture he led his nephew into the street and forced him, 
in his shirt-sleeves and bareheaded, to listen as they 


808 


CSsar Birotteau, 


walked towards the Rue des Lombards. “ My nephew, 
your old master may find himself so involved that he 
will be forced to make an assignment. Before taking 
that step, honorable men who have fort}^ years of in- 
tegrity to boast of, virtuous men seeking to save their 
good name, will play the part of reckless gamblers ; they 
become capable of anything ; they will sell their wives, 
traffic with their daughters, compromise their best 
friends, pawn what does not belong to them ; they will 
frequent gambling-tables, become dissemblers, hypo- 
crites, liars ; they will even shed tears. I have wit- 
nessed strange things. You yourself have seen Roguin’s 
respectability, — a man to whom they would have given 
the sacraments without confession. I do not apply these 
remarks in their full force to Monsieur Birotteau, — I 
believe him to be an honest man ; but if he asks you to 
do anything, no matter what, against the rules of busi- 
ness, such as indorsing notes out of good-nature, or 
launching into a S3^stem of ‘ circulations,’ which, to my 
mind, is the first step to swindling, — for it is uttering 
counterfeit paper- money , — if he asks you to do any- 
thing of the kind, promise me that you will sign nothing 
without consulting me. Remember that if you love his 
daughter you must not — in the very interests of 3’our 
love 3’ou must not — destroy’ 3'our future. If Monsieur 
Birotteau is to fall, what will it avail if you fall too? 
You will deprive yourselves, one as much as the other, 
of all the chances of your new business, which may prove 
his only refuge.” 

“Thank you, my uncle; a word to the wise is 
enough,” said Popinot, to whom Cesar’s heart-rending 
exclamation was now explained. 


Cesar Birotteau, 


309 


The merchant in oils, refined and otherwise, returned 
to his gloomy shop with an anxious brow. Birotteau 
saw the change. 

“Will you do me the honor to come up into my bed- 
room? We shall be better there. The clerks, though 
very busy, might overhear us.” 

Birotteau followed Popinot, a prey to the anxiety a 
condemned man goes through from the moment of his 
appeal for mercj’ until its rejection. 

“ My dear benefactor,” said Anselme, “ you cannot 
doubt my devotion ; it is absolute. Permit me only to 
ask you one thing. Will this sum clear you entirely, 
or is it only a means of dela3fing some catastrophe ? If 
it is that, what good will it do to drag me down also? 
You want notes at ninety days. Well, it is absolutely 
impossible that I could meet them in that time.” 

Birotteau rose, pale and solemn, and looked at 
Popinot. 

Popinot, horror-struck, cried out, “I will do them 
for you, if 3"OU wish it.” 

“ Ungrateful ! ” said his master, who spent his whole 
remaining strength in hurling the word at Anselme’s 
brow, as if it were a living mark of infam3\ 

Birotteau walked to the door, and went out. Popi- 
not, rousing himself from the sensation which the ter- 
rible word produced upon him, rushed down the stair- 
case and into the street, but Birotteau was out of sight. 
C^sarine’s lover heard that dreadful charge ringing in 
his ears, and saw the distorted face of the poor distracted 
Cesar constantly before him ; Popinot was to live hence- 
forth, like Hamlet, with a spectre beside him. 

Birotteau wandered about the streets of the neighbor 


310 


CSmr Biroiieau, 


hood like a drunken man. At last he found himself 
upon the quay, and followed it till he reached Sevres, 
where he passed the night at an inn, maddened with 
grief, while his terrified wife dared not send in search 
of him. She knew that in such circumstances an alarm, 
imprudently given, might be fatal to his credit, and 
the wise Constance sacrificed her own anxiety to her 
husband’s commercial reputation : she waited silently 
through the night, mingling her prayers and terrors. 
Was Cesar dead? Had he left Paris on the scent of 
some last hope? The next morning she behaved as 
though she knew the reasons for his absence ; but at five 
o’clock in the afternoon when Cesar had not returned, 
she sent for her uncle and begged him to go at once to the 
Morgue. During the whole of that day the courageous 
creature sat behind her counter, her daughter embroid- 
ering beside her. When Pillerault returned, Cesar was 
with him ; on his way back the old man had met him 
in the Palais-Royal, hesitating before the entrance to 
a gambling-house. 

This was the 14th. At dinner Cesar could not eat. 
His stomach, violently contracted, rejected food. The 
evening hours were terrible. The shaken man went 
through, for the hundredth time, one of those frightful 
alternations of hope and despair which, by forcing the 
soul to run up the scale of joj^ous emotion and then pre- 
cipitating it to the last depths of agony, exhaust the vital 
strength of feeble beings. Derville, Birotteau’s advo- 
cate, rushed into the handsome salon where Madame 
C4sar was using all her persuasion to retain her husband, 
who wished to sleep on the fifth floor, — “ that I may 
not see,” he said, “ these monuments of my folly.” 


Cimr Birotteau. 


311 


“ The suit is won ! ” cried Derville. 

At these words Cesar’s drawn face relaxed ; but his 
joy alarmed Derville and Pillerault. The women left 
the room to go and weep by themselves in Cesarine’s 
chamber. 

“ Now I can get a loan ! ” cried Birotteau. 

“ It would be imprudent,” said Derville ; “ they have 
appealed ; the court might reverse the judgment ; but 
in a month it would be safe.” 

“A month!” 

Cesar fell into a sort of slumber, from which no one 
tried to rouse him, — a species of catalepsy, in which the 
bod}' lived and suffered while the functions of the mind 
were in abeyance. This respite, bestowed b}’ chance, 
was looked upon by Constance, Cesarine, Pillerault, 
and Derville as a blessing from God. And they judged 
rightly : Cesar was thus enabled to bear the harrowing 
emotions of that night. He was sitting in a corner of 
the sofa near the fire ; his wife was in the other corner 
watching him attentively, with a soft smile upon her 
lips, — the smile which proves that women are nearer 
than men to the angelic nature, in that they know how 
to mingle an infinite tenderness with an all-embracing 
compassion ; a secret belonging only to angels seen in 
dreams providentially strewn at long intervals through 
the history of human life. Cesarine, sitting on a little 
stool at her mother’s feet, touched her father’s hand 
lightly with her hair from time to time, as she gave him 
a caress into which she strove to put the thoughts which, 
in such crises, the voice seems to render intrusive. 

Seated in his arm-chair, like the Chancelier de rilopitaj 
on the peristyle of the Chamber of Deputies, Pillerault 


312 


Cimr Birotteau, 


a philosopher prepared for all events, and showing upon 
his countenance the wisdom of an Egyptian sphinx — 
was talking to Derville and his niece in a suppressed 
voice. Constance thought it best to consult the lawyer, 
whose discretion was beyond a doubt. With the bal- 
ance-sheet written in her head, she explained the whole 
situation in low tones. After an hour’s conference, held 
in presence of the stupefied Cesar, Derville shook his 
head and looked at Pillerault. 

“Madame,” he said, with the horrible coolness of 
his profession, “you must give in your schedule and 
make an assignment. Even supposing that by some 
contrivance j^ou could meet the payments for to-morrow, 
3’ou would have to pay down at least three hundred 
thousand francs before you could borrow on those 
lands. Your liabilities are five hundred thousand. To 
meet them you have assets that are \Gry promising, 
very productive, but not convertible at present; you 
must fail within a given time. My opinion is that it 
is better to jump out of the window than to roll down- 
stairs.” 

“ That is my advice, too, dear child,” said Pillerault. 

Derville left, and Madame Cesar and Pillerault went 
with him to the door. 

“Poor father!” said C4sarine, who rose softly to 
lay a kiss on Cesar’s head. “ Then Anselme could do 
nothing?” she added, as her mother and Pillerault 
returned. 

“ Ungrateful ! ” cried C4sar, struck by the name of 
Anselme in the only^ living part of his memory, — as 
the note of a piano lifts the hammer which strikes its 
corresponding string. 


(Jimr Birotteau. 


313 


V. 

From the moment when that word “ Ungratefur* was 
flung at him like an anathema, little Popinot had not had 
an hour’s sleep nor an instant’s peace of mind. The 
unhappy lad cursed his uncle, and finally went to see 
him. To get the better of that experienced judicial wis- 
dom he poured forth the eloquence of love, hoping it 
might seduce a being from whose mind human speech 
slips like water from a duck’s back, — a judge ! 

“ From a commercial point of view,” he said, “ cus- 
tom does allow the managing-partner to advance a cer- 
tain sum to the sleeping-partner on the profits of the 
business, and we are certain to make profits. After 
close examination of my affairs I do feel strong enough 
to pay fort}" thousand francs in three months. The 
known integrity of Monsieur Cesar is a guarantee that 
he will use that forty thousand to pay off his debts. 
Thus the creditors, if there should come a failure, can 
lay no blame on us. Besides, uncle, I would rather 
lose forty thousand francs than lose Cesarine. At this 
very moment while I am speaking, she has doubtless 
been told of my refusal, and will cease to esteem me. 
I vowed my blood to my benefactor ! I am like a 
young sailor who ought to sink with his captain, or a 
soldier who should die with his general.” 

“ Good heart and bad merchant, you will never lose 
my esteem,” said the judge, pressing the hand of his 


314 


CSsar Birotteau, 


nephew. “I have thought a great deal of this,” he 
added. “ I know 3’ou love Cesarine devotedly, and I 
think you can satisfy the claims of love and the claims 
of commerce.” 

Ah ! my uncle, if you have found a way my honor 
is saved ! ” 

“ Advance Birotteau fifty thousand francs on his 
share in 3^our oil, which has now become a species of 
property, reserving to j^ourself the right of buying it 
back. I will draw up the deed.” 

Anselme embraced his uncle and rushed home, made 
notes to the amount of fift3^ thousand francs, and ran 
from the Rue des Cinq-Diamants to the Place Vendome, 
so that just as Cesarine, her mother, and Pillerault were 
gazing at Cesar, amazed at the sepulchral tone in which 
he had uttered the word “ Ungrateful ! ” the door of 
the salon opened and Popinot appeared. 

“ M3' dear and beloved master ! ” he cried, wiping the 
perspiration from his forehead, “ here is what you asked 
of me ! ” He held out the notes. “ Yes, I have carefull3^ 
examined m3' situation ; 3^ou need have no fear, I shall 
be able to pay them. Save — save 3'our honor ! ” 

“I was sure of him!” cried Cesarine, seizing Popi- 
not’s hand, and pressing it with convulsive force. 

Madame Cesar embraced him ; Birotteau rose up like 
the righteous at the sound of the last trump, and issued, 
as it were, from the tomb. Then he stretched out a 
frenzied hand to seize the fift3" stamped papers. 

“ Stop I ” said the terrible uncle Pillerault, snatching 
the papers from Popinot, “ one moment ! ” 

The four individuals present, — Cesar, his wife, Cesa- 
rine, and Popinot, — bewildered b3^ the action of the old 


CSsar Birotteau. 


815 


man and by the tone of his voice, saw him tear the 
papers and fling them in the Are, without attempting to 
interfere. 

“ Uncle ! ” 

“ Uncle ! ” 

“Uncle!” \ 

“ Monsieur I ” 

Four voices and but one heart ; a startling unanimity ! 
Uncle Pillerault passed his arm round Popinot’s neck, 
held him to his breast, and kissed him. 

“You are worthy of the love of those who have 
hearts,” he said. “If 3’ou loved a daughter of mine, 
bad she a million and you had nothing but that [point- 
ing to the black ashes of the notes] , you should marry 
her in a fortnight, if she loved you. Your master,” 
he said, pointing to C^sar, “is beside himself. My 
nephew,” resumed Pillerault gravety, addressing the 
poor man, — “ mj^ nephew, awa}- with illusions! We 
must do business with francs, not feelings. All this 
is noble, but useless. I spent two hours at the Bourse 
this afternoon ; you have not one farthing’s credit ; 
every one is talking of your disaster, of your attempts 
to renew, of your appeals to various bankers, of their 
refusals, of your follies, — going up six flights of stairs 
to beg a gossiping landlord, who chatters like a mag- 
pie, to renew a note of twelve hundred francs! — your 
ball, given to conceal 3’our embarrassments. They 
have 'gone so far as to say 3’ou had no property in 
Roguin’s hands ; according to 3’our enemies, Roguin is 
only a blind. A friend of mine, whom I sent about to 
learn what is going on, confirms what I tell you. Every 
one foresees that Popinot will issue notes, and believes 


316 


CSmr Birotteau. 


that you set him up in business expressly as a last re- 
source. In short, ever}^ calumny or slander which a 
man brings upon himself when he tries to mount a rung 
of the social ladder, is going the rounds among business 
men to-da^". You might hawk about those notes of 
Popinot in vain ; 3"OU would meet humiliating refusals ; 
no one would take them ; no one could be sure how 
man^’ such notes you are issuing ; ever}’ one expects 
you to sacrifice the poor lad to your own safety. You 
would destroy to no purpose the credit of the house of 
Popinot. Do you know how much the boldest money- 
lender would give you for those fifty thousand francs ? 
Twenty thousand at the most ; twenty thousand, do you 
hear me? There are crises in business when we must 
stand up three days before the world without eating, 
as if we had indigestion, and on the fourth we may be 
admitted to the larder of credit. You cannot live 
through those three days ; and the whole matter lies 
there. My poor nephew, take courage ! file your sched- 
ule, make an assignment. Here is Popinot, here am 
I ; we will go to work as soon as the clerks have gone to 
bed, and spare you the agony of it.” 

“ My uncle ! ” said Cesar, clasping his hands. 

“ C^sar, w’ould you choose a shameful failure, in 
which there are no assets? Your share in the house of 
Popinot is all that saves your honor.” 

Cesar, awakened by this last and fatal stream of 
light, saw at length the frightful truth in its full extent ; 
he fell back upon the sofa, from thence to his knees, 
and his mind seemed to wander : he became like a lit- 
tle child. His wife thought he was dying. She knelt 
down to raise him, but joined her voice to his when 


C^iar Birotteau, 


317 


she saw him clasp his hands and lift his eyes, and 
recite, with resigned contrition, in the hearing of his 
uncle, his daughter, and Popinot, the sublime catholic 
prayer : — 

“ Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed he thy 
name ; thy kingdom come ; thy will be done on earth, 
as it is in heaven ; give us this day our daily bread ; 
and forgive us our offences, as we forgive those who 
have offended against us. So be it ! ” 

Tears came into the eyes of the stoic Pillerault; 
C^sarine, overcome and weeping, leaned her head upon 
Popinot’s shoulder, as he stood pale and rigid as a 
statue. 

“Let us go below,” said the old merchant, taking 
the arm of the young man. 

It was half-past eleven when they left Cesar to the 
care of his wife and daughter. Just at that moment 
Celestin, the head-clerk, to whom the management of 
the house had been left during this secret tumult, 
came up to the appartement and entered the salon. 
Hearing his step, Cesarine ran to meet him, that he 
might not see the prostration of his master. 

“ Among the letters this evening there was one 
from Tours, which was misdirected and therefore de- 
layed. I thought it might be from monsieur’s brother, 
so I did not open it.” 

“ Father ! ” cried Cesarine ; “a letter from my uncle 
at Tours ! ” 

“Ah, I am saved ! ” cried C^sar. “ My brother ! oh, 
my brother ! ” He kissed the letter, as he broke the 
seal, and read it aloud to his wife and danghter in a 
trembling voice ; — 


318 


C6mr Birotteau, 


Answer of Francois to Char Birotteau. 

Tours, lOth. 

My beloved Brother, — Your letter gave me the deep- 
est pain. As soon as I had read it, I went at once and offered 
to God the holy sacrifice of the Mass, imploring him by the 
blood which his Son, our divine Redeemer, shed for us, to 
look with mercy upon your afflictions. At the moment 
when I offered the prayer Pro meo fratre Ccesare^ my eyes 
were filled with tears as I thought of you, — from whom, 
unfortunately, I am separated in these days when you must 
sorely need the support of fraternal friendship. I have 
thought that the worthy and venerable Monsieur Pillerault 
would doubtless replace me. My dear Cesar, never forget, 
in the midst of your troubles, that this life is a scene of 
trial, and is passing away; that one day we shall be re- 
warded for having suffered for the holy name of God, for his 
holy Church, for having followed the teachings of his Gos- 
pel and practised virtue. If it were otherwise, this world 
would have no meaning. I repeat to you these maxims 
though I know how good and pious you are, because it may 
happen that those who, like you, are flung into the storms 
of life upon the perilous waves of human interests might be 
tempted to utter blasphemies in the midst of their adversity, 
— carried away as they are by anguish. Curse neither the 
men who injure you nor the God who mingles, at his will, 
your joy with bitterness. Look not on life, but lift your 
eyes to heaven ; there is comfort for the weak, there are 
riches for the poor, there are terrors for the — 

“ But, Birotteau,” said his wife, “ skip all that, and 
see what he sends us.” 

“We will read it over and over hereafter,” said 
C^sar, wiping his eyes and turning over the page,* — 
letting fall, as he did so, a Treasury ndte. “ I was 


CSsar Birotteau. 


819 


sure of him, poor brother ! ” said Birotteau, picking up 
the note and continuing to read, in a voice broken by 
tears. 

I went to Madame de Listdmere, and without telling her 
the reason of my request 1 asked her to lend me all she 
could dispose of, so as to swell the amount of my savings. 
Her generosity has enabled me to make up a thousand 
francs; which I send herewith, in a note of the Receiver- 
General of Tours on the Treasury. 

“ A fine sum ! ” said Constance, looking at Cesarine. 

By retrenching a few superfluities in my life, I can return 
the four hundred francs Madame de Listomere has lent me 
in three years ; so do not make yourself uneasy about them, 
my dear Cesar. I send you all I have in the world; hoping 
that this sum may help you to a happy conclusion of your 
financial difficulties, which doubtless are only momentary. 
I well know your delicacy, and I wish to forestall your ob- 
jections. Do not dream of paying me any interest for this 
money, nor of paying it back at all in the day of prosperity 
which ere long will dawn for you if God deigns to hear the 
prayers I offer to him daily. After I received your last letter, 
two years ago, I thought you so rich that I felt at liberty 
to spend my savings upon the poor; but now, all that I 
have is yours. When you have overcome this little com- 
mercial difficulty, keep the sum I now send for my niece 
Cesarine ; so that when she marries she may buy some trifle 
to remind her of her old uncle, who daily lifts his hands to 
heaven to implore the blessing of God upon her and all who 
are dear to her. And also, my dear Cesar, recollect I am a 
poor priest who dwells, by the grace of God, like the larks 
in the meadow, in quiet places, trying to obey the com- 
mandment of our divine Saviour, and who consequently 
needs but little money. Therefore, do not have the least 


320 


CSsar Birotteau, 


scruple in the trying circumstances in which you find your- 
self; and think of me as one who loves you tenderly. 

Our excellent Abbe Chapeloud, to whom I have not re- 
vealed your situation, desires me to convey his friendly 
regards to every member of your family, and his wishes for 
the continuance of your prosperity. Adieu, dear and well- 
beloved brother; I pray that at this painful juncture God 
will be pleased to preserve your health, and also that of 
your wife and daughter. I wish you, one and all, patience 
and courage under your afflictions. 

FRAN901S Birotteau, 

Priesty Vicar of the Cathedral and Parochial Church 
of Saint-Gatien de Tours. 

“ A thousand francs ! ” cried Madame Birotteau. 

“ Put them away,” said C^sar gravely ; “ they are all 
he had. Besides, they belong to our daughter, and 
will enable us to live ; so that we need ask nothing of 
our creditors.” 

“ They will think you are abstracting large sums.” 

“ Then I will show them the letter.” 

“ They will think it a trick.” 

“My God! my God!” cried Birotteau. “I once 
thought thus of poor, unhappy people who were doubt- 
less as I am now.” 

Terribl}’ anxious about Cesar’s state, mother and 
daughter sat plying their needles by his side, in pro- 
found silence. At two in the morning Popinot gently 
opened the door of the salon and made a sign to Madame 
Cesar to come down. On seeing his niece Pillerault 
took off his spectacles. 

“ My child, there is hope,” he said ; “all is not lost. 
But your husband could not bear the uncertainty of the 
negotiations which Anselme and I are about to under 


CS$ar Birotteau. 


321 


take. Don’t leave your shop to-morrow, and take the 
addresses of all the bills ; we have till four o’clock in 
the afternoon of the 15 th. Here is my plan : Neither 
Ragon nor I am to be considered. Suppose that 3wr 
hundred thousand francs deposited with Roguin had been 
remitted to the purchasers, j^ou would not have them 
then any more than you have them now. The hundred 
and forty^ thousand francs for which notes were given 
to Claparon, and which must be paid in any state of 
the case, are what 3"ou have to meet. Therefore it is 
not Roguin’s bankruptcy which has ruined yon, I find, 
to meet 3"Our obligations, fortj^ thousand francs which 
5"ou can, sooner or later, borrow on 3’our propert3" in the 
Faubourg du Temple, and sixt3^ thousand for 3’our 
share in the house of Popinpt. Thus 3^ou can make a 
struggle, for later you ma3^ borrow on the lands about 
the Madeleine. If 3’our chief creditor agrees to help 
3'Ou, I shall not consider m3^ interests ; I shall sell out 
m3^ Funds and live on dry bread ; Popinot will get 
along between life and death, and as for 3’ou, 3"ou will 
be at the merc3" smallest commercial mischance ; 

but Cephalic Oil will undoubtedl3" make great returns. 
Popinot and I have consulted together ; we will stand 
b3" 3’ou in this struggle. Ah ! I shall eat my dry bread 
ga3’ly if I see da3dight breaking on the horizon. But 
ever3Thing depends on Gigonnet, who holds the notes, 
and the associates of Claparon. Popinot and I are 
going to see Gigonnet between seven and eight o’clock 
in the morning, and then we shall know what their 
intentions are.” 

Constance, wholly overcome, threw herself into her 
uncle’s arms, voiceless except through tears and sobs 

21 


322 


CSsar Birotteau. 


Neither Popinot nor Pillerault knew or could know 
that Bidault, called Gigonnet, and Claparon were du 
Tillet under two shapes ; and that du Tillet was re- 
solved to read in the “Journal des Petites Affiches” 
this terrible article ; — 

“ Judgment of the Court of Commerce, which declares the 
Sieur Cesar Birotteau, merchant-perfumer, living in Paris, 
Rue Saint- Honore, no. 397, insolvent, and appoints the pre^ 
liminary examination on the 17th of January, 1819. Com- 
missioner, Monsieur Gobenheim-Keller. Agent, Monsieur 
Molineux.” 

Anselme and Pillerault examined Cdsar’s affairs until 
daylight. At eight o’clock in the morning the two brave 
friends, — one an old soldier, the other a young recruit, 
who had never known, except by hearsay, the terrible 
anguish of those who commonly went up the staircase 
of Bidault called Gigonnet, — wended their way, with- 
out a word to each other, towards the Rue Grenetat. 
Both were suffering ; from time to time Pillerault passed 
his hand across his brow. 

Tlie Rue Grenetat is a street where all the houses, 
crowded with trades of every kind, have a repulsive as- 
pect. The buildings are horrible. The vile uncleanliness 
of manufactories is their leading feature. Old Gigonnet 
lived on the third floor of a house whose window-sashes, 
with small and very dirty panes, swung by the middle, 
on pivots. The staircase opened directly upon the 
street. The porter’s lodge was on the entresol, in a 
space which was lighted onl}^ from the staircase. All 
the lodgers, with the exception of Gigonnet, worked 
at trades. Workmen were continually coming and 
going. The stairs were caked with a layer of mud, 


Cimr Birotteau, 


323 


hard or soft according to the state of the atmosphere, 
and were covered with filth. Each landing of this 
noisome stairway bore the names of the occupants in 
gilt letters on a metal plate, painted red and varnished, 
to which were attached specimens of their craft. As 
a rule, the doors stood open and gave to view queer 
combinations of the domestic household and the manu- 
facturing operations. Strange cries and grunts issued 
therefrom, with songs and whistles and hisses that re- 
called the hour of four o’clock in the Jardin des Plantes. 
On the first floor, in an evil-smelling lair, the handsom- 
est braces to be found in the article- Paris were made. 
On the second floor, the elegant boxes which adorn the 
shop-windows of the boulevards and the Palais-Royal at 
the beginning of the new year were manufactured, in the 
midst of the vilest filth. Gigonnet eventually died, worth 
eighteen hundred thousand francs, on the third floor of 
this house, from which no consideration could move him ; 
though his niece, Madame Saillard, offered to give him 
an appartement in a hotel in the Place Ro3’ale. 

“Courage! ” said Pillerault, as he pulled the deer’s 
hoof hanging from the bell-rope of Gigonnet’s clean 
gray door, 

Gigonnet opened the door himself. Cesar’s two sup- 
porters, entering the precincts of bankruptcj^ crossed 
the first room, which was clean and chillj^ and without 
curtains to its windows. All three sat down in the inner 
room where the mone^^-lender lived, before a hearth full 
of ashes, in the midst of which the wood was successfully 
defending itself against the fire. Popinot’s courage 
froze at sight of the usurer’s green boxes and the 
monastic austerity of the room, whose atmosphere was 


324 


CSsar Birotteau, 


like that of a cellar. He looked with a wondering eye at 
the miserable blueish paper sprinkled with tricolor flow- 
ers, which had been on the walls for twenty-five years ; 
and then his anxious glance fell upon the chimney-piece, 
ornamented with a clock shaped like a lyre, and two 
oval vases in Sevres blue richly mounted in copper-gilt. 
This relic, picked up by Gigonnet after the pillage of 
Versailles, where the populace broke nearly everything, 
came from the queen’s boudoir; but these rare vases 
were flanked by two candelabra of abject shape made 
of wrought-iron, and the barbarous contrast recalled 
the circumstances under which the vases had been 
acquired. 

“ I know that you have not come on your own ac- 
count,” said Gigonnet, “but on behalf of the great 
Birotteau. Well, what is it, my friends? ” 

“We can tell you nothing that you do not already 
know ; so I will be brief,” said Pillerault. “You have 
notes to the order of Claparon ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“Will you exchange the first fifty thousand of those 
notes against notes of Monsieur Popinot, here present, 
— less the discount, of course ? ” 

Gigonnet took off the terrible green cap which seemed 
to have been born on him, pointed to his skull, denuded 
of hair and of the color of fresh butter, made his usual 
Voltairean grimace, and said : “You wish to pay me in 
hair-oil ; have I any use for it? ” 

“ If you choose to jest, there is nothing to be done 
but to beat a retreat,” said Pillerault. 

“ You speak like the wise man that you are,” answered 
Gigonnet, with a flattering smile. 


CSsar Birotteau, 


325 


“ Well, suppose I indorse Monsieur Popinot’s notes? ’* 
said Pillerault, playing his last card. 

“ You are gold by the ingot, Monsieur Pillerault ; but 
I don’t want bars of gold, I want my money.” 

Pillerault and Popinot bowed and went away. Going 
down the stairs, Popinot’s knees shook under him. 

“ Is that a man? ” he said to Pillerault. 

“ The}* say so,” replied the other. “ My boy, always 
bear in mind this short interview. Anselme, you have 
just seen the banking-business unmasked, without its 
cloak of courtesy. Unexpected events are the screw of 
the press, we are the grapes, the bankers are the casks. 
That land speculation is no doubt a good one ; Gigon- 
net, or some one behind him, means to strangle Cesar 
and step into his skin. It is all over ; there ’s no 
remedy. But such is the Bank : be warned ; never 
have recourse to it ! ” 

After this horrible morning, during which Madame 
Birotteau for the first time sent away those who came 
for their money, taking their addresses, the courage- 
ous woman, happy in the thought that she was thus 
sparing her husband from distress, saw Popinot and 
Pillerault, for whom she waited with ever-growing 
anxiety, return at eleven o’clock, and read her sentence 
in their faces. The assignment was inevitable. 

“ He will die of grief,” said the poor woman. 

“ I could almost wish he might,” said Pillerault, 
solemnly; “but he is so religious that, as things are 
now, his director, the Abb4 Loraux, alone can save 
him.” 

Pillerault, Popinot, and Constance waited while a 
clerk was sent to bring the Abb^ Loraux, before they 


326 


CSsar Birotteau. 


carried up to Cesar the schedule which Celestin had 
prepared, and asked him to aflSx his signature. The 
clerks were in despair, for the}^ loved their master. At 
four o’clock the good priest came ; Constance explained 
the misfortune that had fallen upon them, and the abb© 
went upstairs as a soldier mounts the breach. 

know why 3'ou have come ! ” cried Birotteau. 

“ M3" son,” said the priest, “3^our feelings of resig- 
nation to the Divine will have long been known to me ; 
it now remains to appl3" them. Keep 3"Our e3"es upon 
the cross ; never cease to behold it, and think upon the 
humiliations heaped upon the Saviour of men. Meditate 
upon the agonies of his passion, and 3"ou will be able to 
bear the mortification which God has laid upon 3"ou — ” 

“ My brother, the abb^, has already prepared me,” 
said Cesar, showing the letter, which he had re-read and 
now held out to bis confessor. 

“You have a good brother,” said Monsieur Loraux, 
“ a virtuous and gentle wife, a tender daughter, two 
good friends, — 3"our uncle and our dear Anselme, — 
two indulgent creditors, the Ragons : all these kind 
hearts will pour balm upon 3"our wounds dail3", and will 
help you to bear your cross. Promise me to have the 
firmness of a martyr, and to face the blow without 
faltering.” 

The abbe coughed, to give notice to Pillerault who 
was waiting in the salon. 

“ My resignation is unbounded,” said Cesar, calmly. 
“Dishonor has come; I must now think only of rep- 
aration.” 

The firm voice of the poor man and his whole man- 
ner surprised Cesarine and the priest. Yet nothing 


CSsar Birotteau^ 


327 


could be more natural. All men can better bear a 
known and definite misfortune than the cruel uncertain 
ties of a fate which, from one moment to another, 
brings excessive hope or crushing sorrow. 

‘ ‘ I have dreamed a dream for twentj^-two 3 "ears ; 
to-day I awake with my cudgel in my hand,” said 
Cesar, his mind turning back to the Tourangian peas- 
ant days. 

Pillerault pressed his nephew in his arms as he heard 
the words. Birotteau saw that his wife, Anselme, and 
Celestin were present. The papers which the head- 
clerk held in his hand were significant. C4sar calmly 
contemplated the little group where every ej^e was sad 
but loving. 

“Stay!” he said, unfastening his cross, which he 
held out to the Abbe Loraux ; ‘ ‘ give it back to me on 
the day when I can wear it without shame. Celestin,” 
he added, “write my resignation as deputy-mayor, — 
Monsieur Tabbe will dictate the letter to you ; date 
it the 14th, and send it at once to Monsieur de la 
Billardiere by Raguet.” 

Celestin and the abb(5 went down stairs. For a 
quarter of an hour silence reigned unbroken in Cesar’s 
study. Such strength of mind surprised the family'. 
Celestin and the abbe came back, and Cesar signed his 
resignation. When his uncle Pillerault presented the 
schedule and *ihe papers of his assignment, the poor 
man could not repress a horrible nervous shudder. 

“ My God, have pity upon me !” he said, signing the 
dreadful paper, and holding it out to Celestin. 

“ Monsieur,” said Anselme Popinot, over whose 
dejected brow a luminous light' fiashed suddenly 


328 


CSsar Birotteau, 


“madame, do me the honor to grant me the hand 
of Mademoiselle Cesarine.” 

At these words tears came into the eyes of all pres- 
ent except C4sar ; he rose, took Anselme by the hand 
and said, in a hollow voice, “ My son, you shall never 
marry the daughter of a bankrupt.’^ 

Anselme looked fixedly at Birotteau and said : “ Mon- 
sieur, will you pledge yourself, here, in presence of your 
whole family, to consent to our marriage, if mademoi- 
selle will accept me as her husband, on the day when 
have retrieved your failure ? 

There was an instant’s silence, during which all pres- 
ent were affected by the emotions painted on the worn 
face of the poor man. 

“ Yes,” he said, at last. 

Anselme made a gesture of unspeakable joy, as he 
took the hand which Cesarine held out to him, and 
kissed it. 

“ You consent, then?” he said to her. 

“Yes,” she answered. 

“ Now that I am one of the family, I have the right 
to concern myself in its affairs,” he said, with a strange, 
excited expression of face. 

He left the room precipitately, that he might not show 
a joy which contrasted too cruelly with the sorrow of his 
master. Anselme was not actually happy at the failure, 
but love is such an egoist ! Even Cesarine felt within 
her heart an emotion that contradicted her bitter grief. 

“ Now that we have got so far,” whispered Pillerai]lt 
to Constance, “ shall we strike the last blow?” 

Madame Birotteau let a sign of grief rather than 
of acquiescence escape her. 


CSsar Birotteau. 


329 


“ My nephew,” said Pillerault, addressing C 4 sar, 
“ what do 3’ou intend to do?” 

“ To carr}’ on mj business.” 

“That would not be my judgment,” said Pillerault. 
“ Take my advice, wind up everything, make over your 
whole assets to your creditors, and keep out of business. 
I have often imagined how it would be if I were in a 
situation such as 3’0ur& — Ah, one has to foresee eveiy- 
thing in business ! a merchant who does not think of 
failure is like a general who counts on never being de- 
feated ; he is onl3' half a merchant. I, in 3"our position, 
would never have continued in business. What! be 
forced to blush before the men I had injured, to bear 
their suspicious looks and tacit reproaches ? I can con- 
ceive of the guillotine — a moment, and all is over. 
But to have the head replaced, and daih’ cut off anew, — 
that is agon3^ I could not have borne. Many men take 
up their business as if nothing had happened : so much 
the better for them ; they are stronger than Claude- 
Joseph Pillerault. If you pa3" in cash, and you are 
obliged to do so, the3' say that 3^011 have kept back part 
of 3’our assets ; if you are without a penny, it is use- 
less to attempt to recover 3'ourself. No, give up 3’our 
propert3", sell your business, and find something else 
to do.” 

“ What could I find? ” said Cesar. 

“ Well,” said Pillerault, “ look for a situation. You 
have infiuential friends, — the Due and the Duchesse de 
Lenoncourt, Madame de Mortsauf, Monsieur de Van- 
denesse. Write to them, go and see them ; they might 
get 3’ou a situation in the ro3’al household which would 
give 3"OU a thousand crowns or so ; your wife could 


830 


Ci%aT Birotteau. 


earn as much more, and perhaps your daughter also. 
The situation is not hopeless. You three might earn 
nearly ten thousand francs a year. In ten years you 
could pay off a hundred thousand francs, for you shall 
not use a penny of what you earn ; your two women will 
have fifteen hundred francs a year from me for their 
expenses, and, as for 3^ou, — we will see about that.’' 

Constance and Cesar laid these wise words to heart. 
Pillerault left them to go to the Bourse, which in those 
days was held in a provisional wooden building of a 
circular shape, and was entered from the Rue Fey- 
deau. The failure, already known, of a man lately 
noted and envied, excited general comment in the upper 
commercial circles, which at that period were all “ con- 
stitutionnel.” The gentry of the Opposition claimed a 
monopoly of patriotism. Royalists might love the 
king, but to love your country was the exclusive priv- 
ilege of the Left ; the people belonged to it. The 
downfall of a protege of the palace, of a ministerialist, 
an incorrigible royalist who on the 13th Vendemiaire 
had insulted the cause of liberty by fighting against the 
glorious French Revolution, — such a downfall excited 
the applause and tittle-tattle of the Bourse. Pillerault 
wished to learn and stud}^ the state of public opinion. 
He found in one of the most animated groups du Tibet, 
Gobenheim-Keller, Nucingen, old Guillaume, and his 
son-in-law Joseph Lebas, Claparon, Gigonnet, Mon- 
genod, Camusot, Gobseck, Adolphe Keller, Palma, Chif- 
freville, Matifat, Grindot, and Lourdois. 

“ What caution one needs to have ! ” said Gobenheim 
to du Tibet. “ It was a mere chance that one of my 
brothers-in-law did not give Birotteau a credit.” 


CSsar Birotteau, 


331 


“ I am in for ten thousand francs,” said du Tillet ^ ^ 
“he asked me for them two weeks ago, and 1 let him 
have them on his own note without securit3^ But he 
formerly’ did me some service, and I am willing to lose 
the mone}^” 

“ Your nephew has done like all the rest,” said Lour- 
dois to Pillerault, — ‘ ‘ given balls and parties ! That 
a scoundrel should try to throw dust in people’s ej'es, I 
can understand ; but it is amazing that a man who 
passed for as honest as the daj’ should plaj’ those worn- 
out, knavish tricks which we are always finding out 
and condemning.” 

“ Don’t trust people unless they live in hovels like 
Claparon,” said Gigonnet. 

“Hey! mein freint,” said the fat Nucingen to du 
Tillet, “ 3'ou haf joust missed bla3ingme a brett3’ drick 
in zenting Pirodot to me. I don’t know,” he added, ad- 
dressing Gobenheim the manufacturer, “ Yy he tid not 
ask me for fifd3" tousand francs. I should haf gif dem 
to him.” 

“Oh, no. Monsieur le baron,” said Joseph Lebas, 

“ 3^ou knew ver3’^ well that the Bank had refused his 
paper ; 3^ou made them reject it in the committee on 
discounts. The aflTair of this unfortunate man, for 
whom I still feel the highest esteem, presents certain 
peculiar circumstances.” 

Pillerault pressed the hand of Joseph Lebas. 

“ Yes,” said Mongenod, “ it seems impossible to ex- 
plain what has happened, unless we believe that con- 
cealed behind Gigonnet there are certain bankers who 
want to strangle the speculation in the lauds about the 
Madeleine.” 


332 


CSsar Birotteau. 


“ What has happened is what happens always to 
those who go out of their proper business,” said Cla- 
^paron, hastily interrupting Mongenod. “If he had 
set up his own Cephalic Oil instead of running up the 
price of all the land in Paris by pouncing upon it, he 
might have lost his hundred thousand francs with 
Roguin, but he wouldn’t have failed. He will go on 
now under the name of Popinot.” 

“ Keep a watch on Popinot,” said Gigonnet. 

Roguin, in the parlance of such worthy merchants, 
was now the “ unfortunate Roguin.” Cesar had become 
“ that wretched Birotteau.” The one seemed to them 
excused by his great passion ; the other they considered 
all the more guilty for his harmless pretensions. 

Gigonnet, after leaving the Bourse, went round by 
the Rue Perrin-Gasselin on his waj" home, in search of 
Madame Madou, the vendor of dried fruits. 

“Well, old woman,” he said, with his coarse good- 
humor, “ how goes the business? ” 

“ So-so,” said Madame Madou, respectfully, offering 
her only armchair to the usurer, with a show of atten- 
tion she had never bestowed on her “ dear defunct.” 

Mother Madou, who would have floored a recalcitrant 
or too-familiar wagoner and gone fearlessl}^ to the 
assault of the Tuileries on the 10th of October, who 
jeered her best customers and was capable of speaking 
up to the king in the name of her associate market- 
women, — Angelique Madou received Gigonnet with 
abject respect. Without strength in his presence, 
she shuddered under his rasping glance. The lower 
classes will long tremble at sight of the executioner, 
and Gigonnet was the executioner of petty commerce. 


CSsar Birotteau. 


333 


In the markets no power on earth is so respected as 
that of the man who controls the flow of money ; all 
other human institutions are as nothing beside him. 
Justice herself takes the form of a commissioner, a 
familiar personage in the eyes of the market ; but 
usury seated behind its green boxes, — usury, entreated 
with fear tugging at the heart-strings, dries up all jest- 
ing, parches the throat, lowers the proudest look, and 
makes the commonest market women respectful. 

“ Do you want anything of me? ’’ she said. 

“A trifle, a mere nothing. Hold yourself ready to 
make good those notes of Birotteau ; the man has failed, 
and claims must be put in at once. I will send you the 
account to-morrow morning.” 

Madame Madou’s ej^es contracted like those of a cat 
for a second, and then shot out flames. 

“Ah, the villain! Ah, the scoundrel! He came 
and told me himself he was a deputy-maj’or, — a 
trumped-up story ! Reprobate ! is that what he calls 
business ? There is no honor among mayors ; the gov- 
ernment deceives us. Stop ! I ’ll go and make him pay 
me ; I will — ” 

“Hey! at such times everj^body looks out for him- 
self, my dear ! ” said Gigonnet, lifting his leg with the 
quaint little action of a cat fearing to cross a wet place, 
— a habit to which he owed his nickname. “There 
are some very big wigs in the matter who mean to get 
themselves out of the scrape.” 

“Yes, and I’ll pull m}^ nuts out of the fire, too! 
Marie-Jeanne, bring iny clogs and my rabbit-skin 
cloak ; and quick, too, or I ’ll warm you up with a box 
on the ear.” 


334 


CSsar Birotteau. 


“There'll be warm work down there!” thought 
Gigonnet, rubbing his hands as he walked awaj". “ Du 
Tillet will be satisfied ; it will make a fine scandal all 
through the quarter. I don’t know what that pooa 
devil of a perfumer has done to him ; for my part 1 
pity the fellow as I do a dog with a broken leg. He 
is n’t a man, he has got no force.” 

Madame Madou bore down, like an insurrectionary 
wave from the Faubourg Saint- Antoine, upon the shop- 
door of the hapless Birotteau, which she opened with ex- 
cessive violence, for her walk had increased her fury. 

“ Heap of vermin 1 I want my money ; I will have 
my money ! You shall give me my money, or I carry off 
your scent-bags, and that satin trumpeiy, and the fans, 
and everything you ’ve got here, for my two thousand 
francs. Who ever heard of mayors robbing the people? 
If you don’t pay me I ’ll send you to the galleys ; I ’ll 
go to the police, — justice shall be done ! I won’t leave 
this place till I ’ve got my money.” 

She made a gesture as if to break the glass before 
the shelves on which the valuables were placed. 

“ Mother Madou takes a drop too much,” whispered 
Celestin to his neighbor. 

The virago overheard him, — for in paroxysms of pas- 
sion the organs are either paralyzed or trebly acute, — 
and she forthwith applied to Celestin’s ear the most 
vigorous blow that ever resounded in a Parisian per- 
fumery. 

“ Learn to respect women, my angel,” she said, 
“ and don’t smirch the names of the people you rob.” 

“Madame,” said Madame Birotteau, entering from 
the back-shop, where she happened to be with her hus- 


CSsar Birotteau. 


335 


band, — whom Pillerault was persuading to go with him, 
while Cesar, to obe}" the law, was humbl}^ expressing 
his willingness to go to prison, — “ madame, for heaven’s 
sake do not raise a mob, and bring a crowd upon us ! ” 
“ Hey ! let them come,” said the woman ; “I’ll tell 
them a tale that will make you laugh the wrong side 
of your mouth. Yes, my nuts and my francs, picked 
up by the sweat of my brow, helped you to give balls. 
There you are, dressed like the queen of France in 
woollen which you sheared off the backs of poor sheep 
such as me ! Good God ! it would burn m}’- shoulders, 
that it would, to wear stolen goods ! I ’ve got nothing 
but rabbit-skin to cover my carcass, but it is mine ! 
Brigands, thieves, mj^ money or — ” 

She darted at a pretty inlaid box containing toilet 
articles. 

“ Put that down, madame ! ” said Cesar, coming for- 
ward, “ nothing here is mine ; everything belongs to my 
creditors. I own nothing but mj^' own person ; if you 
wish to seize that and put me in prison, I give you my 
word of honor ” — the tears fell from his ej’es — “ that 
I will wait here till you have me arrested.” 

The tone and gesture were so completely in keeping 
with his words that Madame Madou’s anger subsided. 

“ property has been carried off by a notaiy ; I 
am innocent of the disasters I cause,” continued Cesar, 
‘ ‘ but you shall be paid in course of time if I have to 
die in the effort, and work like a gallej’-slave as a porter 
in the markets.” 

“ Come, you are a good man,” said the market-woman. 
“Excuse my words, madame; but I may as well go 
and drown myself, for Gigonnet will hound me down. 


336 


CSsar Birotteau. 


I car/t get any money for ten months to redeem those 
damned notes of 3^ours which I gave him.*’ 

“ Come and see me to-morrow morning,” said Pille- 
rault, showing himself. “ I will get you the money 
from one of my friends, at five per cent.” 

“ Hey ! if it isn’t the worthy Pere Pillerault ! Why, 
to be sure, he ’s 3*our uncle,” she said to Constance. 
“Well, you are all honest people, and I sha’n’t lose 
my money, shall I? To-morrow morning, then, old 
fellow ! ” she said to the retired ironmonger. 

C^sar was determined to live on amid the wreck of 
his fortunes at “ The Queen of Roses,” insisting that he 
would see his creditors and explain his affairs to them 
himself. In spite of Madame Birotteau’s earnest en- 
treaties, Pillerault seemed to approve of Cesar’s deci- 
sion and took him back to his own room. The wily old 
man then went to Monsieur Haudry, explained the case, 
and obtained from him a prescription for a sleeping 
draught, which he took to be made up, and then returned 
to spend the evening with the famil3^ Aided by Cesar- 
ine he induced her father to drink with them. The nar- 
cotic soon put Cesar to sleep, and when he woke up, 
fourteen hours later, he was in Pillerault’s bedroom. 
Rue des Bourdonnais, fairl}- imprisoned by the old man, 
who was sleeping himself on a cot-bed in the salon. 

When Constance heard the coach containing Pillerault 
and C^sar roll away from the door, her courage de- 
serted her. Our powers are often stimulated by the 
necessity of upholding some being feebler than ourselves. 
The poor woman wept to find herself alone in her home 
as she would have wept for C^sar dead. 


Cimr Birotteau. 


387 


“ Mamma,” said Cesarine, sittiag on her mother’s 
knee, and caressing her with the prett}^ kittenish grace 
which women only displa}^ to perfection among them- 
selves, “you said that if I took up my life bravely, 
you would have strength to bear adversity. Don’t cry, 
dear mother ; I am ready and willing to go into some 
shop, and I shall never think again of what we once 
were. I shall be like you in your young days ; and 
3’ou shall never hear a complaint, nor even a regret, 
from me. I have a hope. Did you not hear what 
Monsieur Anselme said?” 

“ The dear boy ! he shall not be my son-in-law — ” 

“ Oh, mamma ! ” 

“ — he shall be my own son.” 

“ Sorrow has one good,” said Cesarine, kissing her 
mother ; “it teaches us to know our true friends.” 

The daughter at last eased the pain of the poor woman 
b}^ changing places and playing the mother to her. The 
next morning Constance went to the house of the Due 
de Lenoncourt, one of the gentlemen of the king’s bed- 
chamber, and left a letter asking for an interview at a 
later hour of the day. In the interval she went to 
Monsieur de la Billardiere, and explained to him the 
situation in which Roguin’s flight had placed C^sar, 
begging him to go with her to the duke and speak for 
her, as she feared she might explain matters ill herself. 
She wanted a place for Birotteau. Birotteau, she said, 
would be the most upright of cashiers, — if there could 
be degrees of integrity among honest men. 

“ The King has just appointed the Comte de Fontaine 
master of his household ; there is no time to be lost in 
making the application,” said the ma3"or. 

22 


838 


CSsar Birotteau. 


At two o’clock Monsieur de la Billardiere and 
Madame Cesar went up the gi’and staircase of the 
Hotel de Lenoncourt, Rue Saint-Dominique, and were 
ushered into the presence of the nobleman whom the 
king preferred to all others, — if it can be said that 
Louis XVIII. ever had a preference. The gracious 
welcome of this great lord, who belonged to the small 
number of true gentlemen whom the preceding centur}^ 
bequeathed to ours, encouraged Madame Cesar. She 
was dignified, yet simple, in her sorrow. Grief enno- 
bles even the plainest people ; for it has a grandeur of 
its own ; to reflect its lustre, a nature must needs be 
true. Constance was a woman essentially true. 

The question was, how to speak to the king at once. 
In the midst of the conference Monsieur de Vande- 
nesse was announced ; and the duke exclaimed, “ Here 
is our support ! ” 

Madame Birotteau was not unknown to this young 
man, who had been to her shop two or three times in 
search of those trifles which are sometimes of more 
importance than greater things. The duke explained 
Monsieur de la Billardiere’s wishes. As soon as he 
learned the misfortune which had overtaken the godson 
of the Marquise d’Uxelles, Vandenesse went at once, 
accompanied by Monsieur de la Billardiere, to the 
Comte de Fontaine, begging Madame Birotteau to wait 
their return. Monsieur le Comte de Fontaine was, like 
Monsieur de la Billardiere, one of those fine provincial 
gentlemen, the heroes, almost unknown, who made 
“la Vendee.” Birotteau was not a stranger to him, 
for he had seen him in the old days at ‘ ‘ The Queen 
of Roses.” Men who had shed their blood for the 


CSsar Birotteau. 


339 


ro3’aI cause enjoyed at this time certain privileges, which 
the king kept secret, so as not to give umbrage to 
the Liberals. 

Monsieur de Fontaine, alwa3-s a favorite with Louis 
XVIII., was thought to be wholly in his confidence. 
Not onl3" did the count positivel3’ promise a place, but 
he returned with the two gentlemen to the Due de 
Lenoncourt, and asked him to procure for him an 
audience that very evening ; and also to obtain for 
Billardiere an audience with Monsieur, who was greatly 
attached to the old Vendeen diplomatist. 

The same evening, the Comte de Fontaine came 
from the Tuileries to “ The Queen of Roses,” and an- 
nounced to Madame Birotteau that as soon as the pro- 
ceedings in bankruptc3^ were over, her husband would 
be officiall3^ appointed to a situation in the Sinking- 
fund Office, with a salary of two thousand five hundred 
francs, — all the functions in the household of the 
king being overcrowded with noble supernumeraries to 
whom promises had alread3’^ been made. 

This success was but one part of the task before 
Madame Birotteau. The poor woman now went to the 
“Maison du Chat-qui-pelote,” in the Rue Saint-Denis, 
to find Joseph Lebas. As she walked along she met 
Madame Roguin in a brilliant equipage, apparently 
making purchases. Their eyes met ; and the shame 
which the rich woman could not hide as she looked at 
the ruined woman, gave Constance fresh courage. 

“ Never will I roll in a carriage bought with the 
money of others,” she said to herself. 

Joseph Lebas received her kindly, and she begged 
him to obtain a place for Cesarine in some respectable 


340 


iJimr Birotteau, 


commercial establishment. Lebas made no promises*, 
but eight da3’s later Cesarine had board, lodging, and a 
salary of three thousand francs from one of the largest 
linen-drapers in Paris, who was about to open a branch 
establishment in the quartier des Italiens. Cesarine was 
put in charge of the desk, and the superintendence of 
the new shop was intrusted to her ; she filled, in fact, a 
position above that of forewoman, and supplied the 
place of both master and mistress. 

Madame Cesar went from the ‘ ‘ Chat-qui-pelote ” to 
the Rue des Cinq-Diamants, and asked Popinot to let 
her take charge of his accounts and do his writing, and 
also manage his household. Popinot felt that his was 
the only house where Cesar’s wife could meet with the 
respect that was due to her, and find emplo3^ment with- 
out humiliation. The noble lad gave her three thousand 
francs a year, her board, and his own room ; going him- 
self into an attic occupied by one of his clerks. Thus 
it happened that the beautiful woman, after one month’s 
enjoyment of her sumptuous home, came to live in 
the wretched chamber looking into a damp, dark court, 
where Gaudissart, Anselme, and Finot had inaugurated 
Cephalic Oil. 

When Molineux, appointed agent by the Court of 
Commerce, came to take possession of Cesar Birotteau’s 
assets, Madame Birotteau, aided by Celestin, went 
over the inventory with him. Then the mother and 
daughter, plainly dressed, left the house on foot and 
went to their uncle Pillerault’s, without once turning 
their heads to look at the home where they had passed 
the greater part of their lives. They walked in silence to 
the Rue des Bourdonnais, where they were to dine with 


C6mr Birotteau, 


341 


C^sar for the first time since their separation. It was a 
sad dinner. Each had had time for reflection, — time to 
weigh the duties before them, and sound the depths of 
their courage. All three were like sailors ready to face 
foul weather, but not deceived as to their danger. Birot- 
teau gathered courage as he was told of the interest peo- 
ple in high places had taken in finding emplo^^ment for 
him , but he wept when he heard what his daughter was 
to become. Then he held out his hand to his wife, as he 
saw the courage with M'hich she had returned to labor. 
Old Pillerault’s eyes were wet, for the last time in his 
life, as he looked at these three beings folded together 
in one embrace ; from the centre of which Birotteau, 
feeblest of the three and the most stricken, raised his 
hands, saying : — 

Let us have hope ! ” 

“You shall live with me,” said Pillerault, “ for the 
sake of econom}- ; you shall have my chamber, and 
share my bread. I have long been lonely ; you shall 
replace the poor child I lost. From my house it is but 
a step to your office in the Rue de I’Oratoire.” 

“ God of mercy J ” exclaimed Birotteau ; in the 
worst of the storm a star guides me.” 

Resignation is the last stage of man’s misfortuno. 
From this moment Cesar’s downfall was accomplished ; 
he accepted it, and strength returned to him. 


342 


CSsar Birotteau. 


VI. 

After admitting his insolvency and filing his schedule, 
a merchant should find some retired spot in France, or 
in foreign countries, where he may live without taking 
part in life, like the child that he is ; for the law de- 
clares him a minor, and not competent for any legal 
action as a citizen. This, however, is never done. 
Before reappearing he obtains a safe-conduct, which 
neither judge nor creditor ever refuses to give ; for if the 
debtor were found without this exeat he would be put in 
prison, while with it he passes safeh", as with a flag 
of truce, through the enemy’s camp, — not by way of 
curiosity, but for the purpose of defeating the severe 
intention of the laws relating to bankruptcy. The 
effect of all laws which touch private interests is to 
develop, enormous!}’, the knavery of men’s minds. The 
object of a bankrupt, like that of other persons whose 
interests are thwarted by any law, is to make void the 
law in his particular case. 

The status of civil death in which the bankrupt re- 
mains a chrysalis lasts for about three months, — a 
period required by formalities which precede a confer- 
ence at which the creditors and their debtor sign a treaty 
of peace, by which the bankrupt is allowed the ability 
to make payments, and receives a bankrupt’s certificate. 
This transaction is called the concordat, — a word imply- 


CSsar Birotteau, 


343 


Ing, perhaps, that peace reigns after the storm and stress 
of interests violently in opposition. 

As soon as the insolvent’s schedule is filed, the Court 
of commerce appoints a judge-commissioner, whose duty 
it is to look after the interests of the still unknown 
body of creditors, and also to protect the insolvent 
against the vexatious measures of angry creditors, — 
a double office, which might be nobly magnified if the 
judges had time to attend to it. The commissioner, 
however, delegates an agent to take possession of the 
property, the securities, and the merchandise, and to 
verify the schedule ; when this is done, the court ap- 
points a day for a meeting of the creditors, notice 
of which is trumpeted forth in the newspapers. The 
creditors, real or pretended, are expected to be present 
and choose the provisional assignees, who are to super- 
sede the agent, step into the insolvent’s shoes, become 
by a fiction of law the insolvent himself, and are au- 
thorized to liquidate the business, negotiate all trans- 
actions, sell the property, — in short, recast everything 
in the interest of the creditors, provided the bankrupt 
makes no opposition. The majority of Parisian failures 
stop short at this point, and the reason is as follows : 

The appointment of one or more permanent assignees 
is an act which gives opportunity^ for the bitterest action 
on the part of creditors who are thirsting for vengeance, 
who have been tricked, baffled, cozened, trapped, duped, 
robbed, an4 cheated. Although, as a general thing, all 
creditors are cheated, robbed, duped, trapped, cozened, 
tricked, and baffled, yet there is not in all Paris a com- 
mercial passion able to keep itself alive for ninety days. 
The paper of commerce alone maintains its vitality, 


344 


CSsar Birotteau, 


and rises, athirst for payment, in three months. Before 
ninety days are over, the creditors, worn out coming 
and going, by the marches and countermarches which a 
failure entails, are asleep at the side of their excellent 
little wives. This may help a stranger to understand 
why it is that the provisional in France is so often the 
definitive : out of every thousand provisional assignees, 
not more than five ever become permanent. The sub- 
sidence of passions stirred up by failures is thus ac- 
counted for. 

But here it becomes necessary to explain to persons 
who have not the happiness to be in business the whole 
drama of bankruptcy, so as to make them understand 
how it constitutes in Paris a monstrous legal farce ; and 
also how the bankruptcy of Cesar Birotteau was a signal 
exception to the general rule. 

This fine commercial drama is in three distinct acts, 
— the agent’s act, the assignee’s act, the concordat^ or 
certificate-of-bankruptc}" act. Like all theatrical per- 
formances, it is played with a double intent : it is put 
upon the stage for the public eye, but it has also its 
hidden purpose ; there is one performance for the pit, 
and another for the side-scenes. Posted in the side- 
scenes are the bankrupt and his solicitor, the attorney 
of the creditors, the assignees, the agent, and the judge- 
commissioner himself. No one out of Paris knows, and 
no one in Paris does not know, that a judge of the com- 
mercial courts is the most extraordinar}^ magistrate that 
society ever allowed itself to create. This judge may 
live in dread of his own justice at an}" moment. Paris 
has seen the president of her courts of commerce file his 
own schedule. Instead of being an experienced retired 


C!4%ar Birotteau, 


845 


merchant, to whom the magistracy might properly be 
made the reward of a pure life, this judge is a trader, 
bending under the weight of enormous enterprises, and 
at the head of some large commercial house. The sine 
qua non condition in the election of this functionar}’, 
whose business it is to pass judgment on the avalanche of 
commercial suits incessantly rolling through the courts, 
is that he shall have the greatest difficulty in managing 
his own affairs. This commercial tribunal, far from be- 
ing made a useful means of transition whereby a mer- 
chant might rise, without ridicule, into the ranks of the 
nobility, is in point of fact made up of traders who 
are trading, and who are liable to suffer for their judg- 
ments when they next meet with dissatisfied parties, — 
very much as Birotteau was now punished by du 
Tillet. 

The commissioner is of necessity a personage be- 
fore whom much is said ; who listens, recollecting all 
the while his own interests, and leaves the cause 
to the assignees and the attorneys, — except, possibl}', 
in a few strange and unusual cases where dishonesty 
is accompanied by peculiar cii’cumstances, when the 
judge usually observes that the debtor, or the credit- 
ors, as it may happen, are clever people. This per- 
sonage, set up in the drama like the royal bust in a 
public audience-chamber, may be found early in the 
morning at his wood-yard, if he sells wood ; in his shop, 
if, like Birotteau, he is a perfumer ; or, in the evenings, 
at his dessert after dinner, — always, it should be added, 
in a terrible hurry ; as a general thing he is silent. Let 
us, however, do justice to the law : the legislation that 
governs his functions, and which was pushed through in 


346 


Cemr Birotteau, 


haste, has tied the hands of this commissioner ; and 
it sometimes happens that he sanctions fraud which he 
cannot hinder, — as the reader will shortly see. 

The agent to whom the judge delegates the first pro- 
ceedings, instead of serving the creditors, may become 
if he please a tool of the debtor. Every one hopes to 
swell his own gains by getting on the right side of the 
debtor, who is always supposed to keep back a hidden 
treasure. The agent may make himself useful to both 
parties ; on the one hand by not laying the bankrupt’s 
business in ashes, on the other by snatching a few mor- 
sels for men of influence, — in short, he runs with the 
hare and holds with the hounds. A clever agent has 
frequently arrested judgment by buying up the debts 
and releasing the merchant, who then rebounds like an 
india-rubber ball. The agent chooses the best-stocked 
crib, whether it leads him to cover the largest creditors 
and shear the debtor, or to sacrifice the creditors for 
the future prosperity of the restored merchant. The 
action of the agent is decisive. This man, together 
with the bankrupt’s solicitor, plays the utility role in 
the drama, where it may be said neither the one nor 
the other would accept a part if not sure of their fees. 
Taking the average of a thousand failures, an agent 
will be found nine hundred and fifty times on the side 
of the bankrupt. At the period of our history, the 
solicitors frequently sought the judge with the request 
that he would appoint an agent whom they proposed to 
him, — a man, as they said, to whom the affairs of the 
bankrupt were well-known, who would know how to 
reconcile the interests of the whole bodj’^ of creditors 
with those of a man honorably overtaken by misfortune. 


CSsar Birotteau, 


347 


For some years past the best judges have sought the 
advice of the solicitors in this matter for the purpose of 
not taking it, endeavoring to appoint some other agent 
quasi virtuous. 

During this act of the drama the creditors, real 
or pretended, come forward to select the provisional 
assignees, who are often, as we have said, the final ones. 
In this electoral assembly all creditors have the right 
to vote, whether the sum owing to them is fifty sous, 
or fifty thousand francs. This assembly, in which are 
found pretended creditors introduced by the bankrupt, 
— the only electors who never fail to come to the meet- 
ing, — proposes the whole body of creditors as candi- 
dates from among whom the commissioner, a president 
without power, is supposed to select the assignees. 
Thus it happens that the judge almost always ap- 
points as assignees those creditors whom it suits the 
bankrupt to have, — another abuse which makes the 
catastrophe of bankruptcy one of the most burlesque 
dramas to which justice ever lent her name. The 
honorable bankrupt overtaken by misfortune is then 
master of the situation, and proceeds to legalize the 
theft he premeditated. As a rule, the petty trades of 
Paris are guiltless in this respect. When a shopkeeper 
gets as far as making an assignment, the worth}" man 
has usually sold his wife’s shawl, pawned his plate, left 
no stone unturned, and succumbs at last with empty 
hands, ruined, and without enough money to pay his 
attorney, who in consequence cares little for him. 

The law requires that the concordat^ at which is 
granted the bankrupt’s certificate that remits to the 
merchant a portion of his debt, and restores to him the 


348 


CSsar Birotteau, 


right of managing his affairs, shall be attended by a 
majority of the creditors, and also that they shaP repre- 
sent a certain proportion of the debt. This important 
action brings out much clever diplomacy, on the part of 
the bankrupt, his assignees, and his solicitor, among the 
contending interests which cross and jostle each other. 
A usual and very common manoeuvre is to offer to that 
section of the creditors who make up in number and 
amount the majorit}" required by law certain premiums, 
which the debtor consents to pay over and above the 
dividend publicly" agreed upon. This monstrous fraud 
is without remedy. The thirty commercial courts which 
up to the present time have followed one after the 
other, have each known of it, for all have practised it. 
Enlightened by experience, they have lately tried to 
render void such fraudulent agreements ; and as the 
bankrupts have reason to complain of the extortion, 
the judges had some hope of reforming to that extent 
the system of bankruptcy. The attempt, however, will 
end in producing something still more immoral ; for the 
creditors will devise other rascally methods, which the 
judges will condemn as judges, but b}^ which they will 
orofit as merchants. 

Another much-used stratagem, and one to which we 
owe the term “ serious and legitimate creditor,” is that 
of creating creditors, — just as du Tillet created a banker 
and a banking-house, — and introducing a certain quan- 
tity of Claparons under whose skin the bankrupt hides, 
diminishing by just so much the dividends of the true 
creditors, and laying up for the honest man a store for 
the future ; always, however, providing a sufficient rha- 
jority of votes and debts to secure the passage of his 


CSsar Birotteau. 


349 


certificate. The “ gay and illegitimate creditors” are 
like false electors admitted into the electoral college. 
What chance has the “ serious and legitimate creditor” 
against the “ gay and illegitimate creditor ” ? Shall he 
get rid of him by attacking him? How can he do it? 
To drive out the intruder the legitimate creditor must 
sacrifice his time, his own business, and pa}" an attor- 
ney’ to help him ; while the said attorney, making little 
out of it, prefers to manage the bankruptcy in another 
capacity^ and therefore works for the genuine creditor 
without vigor. 

To dislodge the illegitimate creditor it is necessary 
to thread the labyrinth of proceedings in bankruptcy, 
search among past events, ransack accounts, obtain by’ 
injunction the books of the false creditors, show the 
improbability of the fiction of their existence, prove 
it to the judges, sue for justice, go and come, and stir 
up sympathy’ ; and, finally’, to charge like Don Quixote 
upon each “ gay and illegitimate creditor,” who if con- 
victed of “ gayety’” withdraws from court, saying with a 
bow to the judges, “ Excuse me, you are mistaken, I am 
very ‘ serious.^ ” All this without prejudice to the rights 
of the bankrupt, who may carry’ Don Quixote and his 
remonstrance to the upper courts ; during which time 
Don Quixote’s own business is suffering, and he is 
liable to become a bankrupt himself. 

The upshot of all this is, that in point of fact 
the debtor appoints his assignees, audits his own 
accounts, and draws up the certificate of bankruptcy 
himself. 

Given these premises, it is easy to imagine the de- 
vices of Frontin, the trickeries of Sganarelle, the lies of 


350 


Cimr Birotteau, 


Mascarille, and the empty bags of Scapin which such 
a system develops. There has never been a failure 
which did not generate enough matter to fill the four- 
teen volumes of “Clarissa Harlowe,” if an author could 
be found to describe them. A single example will 
suffice. The illustrious Gobseck, — ruler of Palma, 
Gigonnet, Werbrust, Keller, Nucingen, and the like, — 
being concerned in a failure where he attempted to 
roughly handle the insolvent, who had managed to get 
the better of him, obtained notes from his debtor for 
an amount which together with the declared dividend 
made up the sum total of his loss. These notes were 
to fall due after the concordat, Gpbseck then brought 
about a settlement in the concordat b}'^ which sixt3^-five 
per cent was remitted to the bankrupt. Thus the 
creditors were swindled in the interest of Gobseck. 
But the bankrupt had signed the illicit notes with the 
name of his insolvent firm , and he was therefore able to 
bring them under the reduction of sixt^^-five per cent. 
Gobseck, the great Gobseck, received scarcely" fift}^ per 
cent on his loss. From that daj^ forth he bowed to his 
debtor with ironical respect. 

As all operations undertaken by an insolvent within 
ten days before his failure can be impeached, prudent 
men are careful to enter upon certain affairs with a cer- 
tain number of creditors whose interest, like that of the 
bankrupt, is to arrive at the concordat as fast as pos- 
sible. Skilful creditors will approach dull creditors or 
very busy ones, give an ugly look to the failure, and 
buy up their claims at half what they are worth at the 
liquidation ; in this wa}^ they get back their money 
partly by the dividend on their own claims, partly from 


Cimr Birotieau, 351 

the half, or third, or fourth, gained on these purchased 
claims. 

A failure is the closure, more or less hermetically 
tight, of a house where pillage has left a few remaining 
bags of silver. Lucky the man who can get in at a 
window, slide down a chimney, creep in through the 
cellar or through a hole, and seize a bag to swell his 
share ! In the general rout, the sauce qui pent of Bere- 
sina is passed from mouth to mouth ; all is legal and 
illegal, false and true, honest and dishonest. A man is 
admired if he “ covers” himself. To “ cover” himself 
means that he seizes securities to the detriment of the 
other creditors. France has lately rung with the dis- 
cussion of an immense failure that took place in a town 
where one of the upper courts holds its sittings, and 
where the judges, having current accounts with the 
bankrupts, wore such heavy india-rubber mantles that 
the mantle of justice was rubbed into holes. It was 
absolutely necessary, in order to avert legitimate sus- 
picion, to send the case for judgment in another court. 
Inhere was neither judge nor agent nor supreme court 
in the region where the failure took place that could be 
trusted. 

This alarming commercial tangle is so well under- 
stood in Paris, that unless a merchant is involved to a 
large amount he accepts a failure as total shipwreck 
without insurance, passes it to his profit-and-loss ac- 
count, and does not commit the folly of wasting time 
upon it; he contents himself with brewing his own 
malt. As to the petty trader, worried about his monthly 
payments, busied in pushing the chariot of his little 
fortunes, a long and costly legal process terrifies 


352 


CSsar Birotteau. 


him. He gives up trying to see his Way, imitates the 
substantial merchant, bows his head and accepts his 
loss. 

•The wholesale merchants seldom fail, nowadaj^s ; they 
make friendly liquidations ; the creditors take what is 
given to them, and hand in their receipts. In this way 
many things are avoided, — dishonor, judicial delays, 
fees to lawyers, and the depreciation of merchandise. 
All parties think that bankruptcy will give less in the 
end than liquidation. There are now more liquidations 
than bankruptcies in Paris. 

The assignee’s act in the drama is intended to prove 
that every assignee is incorruptible, and that no collu- 
sion has ever existed between any of them and the 
bankrupt. The pit — which has all, more or less, been 
assignee in its day — knows very well that every assignee 
is a “ covered” merchant. It listens, and believes as it 
likes. After three months employed in auditing the 
debtor and creditor accounts, the time comes for the 
concordat. The provisional assignees make a little 
report at the meeting, of which the following is the 
usual formula: — 

Messieurs, — There is owing to the whole of us, in bulk, 
about a million. We have dismantled our man like a con- 
demned frigate. The nails, iron, wood, and copper will 
bring about three hundred thousand francs. We shall thus 
get about thirty per cent of our money. Happy in obtaining 
this amount, when our debtor might have left us only one 
hundred thousand, we hereby declare him an Aristides ; we 
vote him a premium and crown of encouragement, and pro- 
pose to leave him to manage his assets, giving him ten or 
twelve years in which to pay us the fifty per cent which he 


C6mr Birotteau, 


853 


has been so good as to offer us. Here is the certificate of 
bankruptcy ; have the goodness to walk up to the desk and 
sign it. 

At this speech, all the fortunate creditors congratu- 
late each other and shake hands. After the ratification 
of the certificate, the bankrupt becomes once more a 
merchant, precisely such as he was before ; he receives 
back his securities, he continues his business, he is not 
deprived of the power to fail again, on the promised 
dividend, — an additional little failure which often 
occurs, like the birth of a child nine months after the 
mother has married her daughter. 

If the certificate of bankruptcy is not granted, the 
creditors then select the permanent assignees, take 
extreme measures, and form an association to get pos- 
session of the whole property and the business of their 
debtor, seizing everything that he has or ever will have, 
— his inheritance from his father, his mother, his aunt, 
et ccBtera. This stern measure can only be carried 
through by an association of creditors. 

There are therefore two sorts of failure, — the fail- 
ure of the merchant who means to repossess himself of 
his business, and the failure of the merchant who has 
fallen into the water and is willing to sink to the bot- 
tom. Pillerault knew the difference. It was, to his 
thinking and to that of Ragon, as hard to come out 
pure from the first as to come out safe from the second. 
After advising Cesar to abandon everything to his 
creditors, he went to the most honorable solicitor in 
such matters, that immediate steps might be taken to 
liquidate the failure and put everything at once at the 
23 . 


354 


C§%af Birotteau, 


disposition of the creditors. The law requires that 
while the drama is being acted, the creditors shall pro- 
vide for the support of the bankrupt and his family. 
Pillerault notified the commissioner that he would him- 
self supply the wants of his niece and nephew. 

Du Tillet had worked all things together to make 
the failure a prolonged agony for his old master ; and 
this is how he did it. Time is so precious in Paris 
that it is customary, when two assignees are appointed, 
for only one to attend to the affair : the dut}’^ of the 
other is merely formal, — he approves and signs, like 
the second notary in notarial deeds. B3" this means, 
the largest failures in Paris are so vigorously" handled 
that, in spite of the law’s delay s, they are adjusted, 
settled, and secured with such rapidity that within a 
hundred days the judge can echo the atrocious saying 
of the Minister, — “Order reigns in Warsaw.” 

Du Tillet meant to compass Cesar’s commercial 
death. The names of the assignees selected through 
the influence of du Tillet were very significant to Piller- 
ault. Monsieur Bidault, called Gigonnet, — the prin- 
cipal creditor, — was the one to take no active part; 
and Molineux, the mischievous old man who lost noth- 
ing by the failure, was to manage everything. Du 
Tillet flung the noble commercial carcass to the lit- 
tle jackal, that he might torment it as he devoured 
it. After the meeting at which the creditors ap- 
pointed the assignees, little Molineux returned home 
“honored,” so he said, “by the suffrages of his fel- 
low-citizens ; ” happy in the prospect of hectoring 
Birotteau, just as a child delights in having an in- 
sect to maltreat. The landlord, astride of his hobby, 


CSsar Birotteau. 


355 


— the law, — begged du Tillet to favor him with his 
ideas ; and he bought a copy of the commercial Code. 
Happily, Joseph Lebas, cautioned by Pillerault, had 
already requested the president of the Board of Com- 
merce to select a sagacious and well-meaning commis- 
sioner. Gobenheim-Keller, whom du Tillet hoped to 
have, found himself displaced by Monsieur Carnusot, 
a substitute-judge, — a rich silk-merchant. Liberal in 
politics, and the owner of the house in which Pillerault 
lived ; a man counted honorable. 

One of the cruellest scenes of Cesar’s life was his 
forced conference with little Molineux, — the being he 
had once regarded as a nonentit}^ who now by a fiction 
of law had become Cesar Birotteau. He was compelled 
to go to the Cour Batave, to mount the six fiights, and 
re-enter the miserable appartement of the old man, now 
his custodian, his quasi judge, — the representative of 
his creditors. Pillerault accompanied him. 

“ What is the matter?” said the old man, as Cesar 
gave vent to an exclamation. 

Ah, uncle ! you do not know the sort of man this 
Molineux is ! ” 

‘ ‘ I have seen him from time to time for fifteen years 
past at the cafe David, where he plays dominoes. 
That is wh}^ I have come with you.” 

Monsieur Molineux showed the utmost politeness to 
Pillerault, and much disdainful condescension to the 
bankrupt; he had thought over his part, studied the 
shades of his demeanor, and prepared his ideas. 

“What information is it that you need?^’ asked 
Pillerault. “ There is no dispute as to the claims.” 


356 


CSsar Birotteau, 


“ Oh,” said little Molinenx, “ the claims are in 
order, — they have been examined. The creditors are 
all serious and legitimate. But the law, monsieur, — 
the law ! The expenditures of the bankrupt have been 
disproportioned to his fortune. It appears that the 
ball — ” 

“ At which you were present,” interrupted Pillerault. 

“ — cost nearly sixty thousand francs, and at that 
time the assets of the insolvent amounted to not more 
than one hundred and a few thousand francs. There 
is cause to arraign the bankrupt on a charge of wilful 
bankruptcy.” 

“Is that your intention?” said Pillerault, noticing the 
despondency into which these words had cast Birotteau. 

“Monsieur, I make a distinction ; the Sieur Birotteau 
was a member of the municipality — ” 

“You have not sent for us, I presume, to explain 
that we are to be brought into a criminal police court?” 
said Pillerault. “ The cafe David would laugh finely 
at your conduct this evening.” 

The opinion of the cafe David seemed to frighten the 
old man, who looked at Pillerault with a startled air. 
He had counted on meeting Birotteau alone, intending 
to pose as the sovereign arbiter of Ins fate, — a legal 
Jupiter. He meant to frighten him with the thunder- 
bolt of an accusation, to brandish the axe of a crimi- 
nal charge over his head, enjoy his fears and his terrors, 
and then allow himself to be touched and softened, and 
persuaded at last to restore his victim to a life of per- 
petual gratitude. Instead of his insect, he had got hold 
of an old commercial sphinx. 

“ Monsieur,” he replied, “ I see nothing to laugh at.” 


CSsar Birotteau, 


857 


“Excuse me,” said Pilleraiilt. “You have negotiated 
largel}' with Monsieur Claparon ; you have neglected 
the interests of the main body of the creditors, so as to 
make sure that certain claims shall have a preference. 
Now I can as one of the creditors interfere. The 
commissioner is to be taken into account.” 

“ Monsieur,” said Molineux, “ I am incorruptible.” 

“I am aware of it,” said Pillerault. “You have 
only taken your iron out of the fire, as they sa3% You 
are keen ; j^ou are acting just as you do with your 
tenants — ” 

“Oh, monsieur!” said the assignee, suddenly drop- 
ping into the landlord, — just as the cat metamorphosed 
into a woman ran after a mouse when she caught sight 
of it, — “ my affair of the Rue Moutorgueil is not 3"et 
settled. What they call an impediment has arisen. 
The tenant is the chief tenant. This conspirator de- 
clares that as he has paid a 3"ear in advance, and having 
only one more 3'ear to ” — here Pillerault gave Cesar a 
look which advised him to pay strict attention — “ and, 
the year being paid for, that he has the right to take 
away his furniture. I shall sue him I I must hold on 
to my securities to the last ; he may owe something for 
repairs before the year is out.” 

“But,” said Pillerault, “the law only allows 3’ou 
to take furniture as security for the rent — ” 

“And its accessories!” cried Molineux, assailed in 
his trenches. “That article in the Code has been 
interpreted by various judgments rendered in the mat- 
ter: however, there ought to be legislative rectifica- 
tion of it. At this very moment I am elaborating a 
memorial to his Highness, the Keeper of the Seals, 


358 


Cesar Birotteau. 


relating to this flaw in our statutes. It is desirable that 
the government should maintain the interests of land- 
lords. That is the chief question in statecraft. We are 
the tap-root of taxation.” 

“You are well fitted to enlighten the government,” 
said Pillerault ; ‘ ‘ but in what way can we enlighten 
you — about our afiairs?” 

“ I wish to know,” said Molineux, with pompous 
authorit}’, “ if Monsieur Birotteau has received moneys 
from Monsieur Popinot.” 

“No, monsieur,” said Birotteau. 

Then followed a discussion on Birotteau’s interests 
in the house of Popinot, from which it appeared that 
Popinot had the right to have all his advances paid 
in full, and that he was not involved in the failure to 
the amount of half the costs of his establishment, due 
to him by Birotteau. Molineux, judiciously handled by 
Pillerault, insensibl}^ got back to gentler ways, which 
only showed how he cared for the opinion of those who 
frequented the cafe David. He ended by offering con- 
solation to Birotteau, and bj^ inviting him, as well as 
POlerault, to share his humble dinner. If the ex-per- 
fumer had gone alone, he would probably have irritated 
Molineux, and the matter would have become enven- 
omed. In this instance, as in others, old Pillerault was 
his tutelary angel. 

Commercial law imposes a horrible torture upon the 
bankrupt ; he is compelled to appear in person at the 
meeting of his creditors, when they decide upon his 
future fate. For a man who can hold himself above' it 
all, or for a merchant who expects to recover himself, 
this ceremony is little feared. But to a man like Cesar 


CSsar Birotteau, 


359 


Birotteau it was agony only to be compared to the 
last day of a criminal condemned to death. Pillerault 
did all in his power to make that terrible day endurable 
to his nephew. 

The steps taken by Molineux, and agreed to by the 
bankrupt, were as follows : The suit relating to the 
mortgage on the property in the Faubourg du Temple 
having been won in the courts, the assignees decided to 
sell that property, and Cesar made no opposition. Du 
j Tillet, hearing privately that the government intended 
to cut a canal which should lead from Saint-Denis to the 
upper Seine through the Faubourg du Temple, bought 
the property of Birotteau for sevent}" thousand francs. 
All Cesar’s rights in the lands about the Madeleine were 
turned over to Monsieur Claparon, on condition that 
he on his side would abandon all claim against Birot- 
teau for half the costs of drawing up and registering 
the contracts ; also for all payments on the price of the 
lands, by receiving himself, under the failure, the divi- 
dend which was to be paid over to the sellers. The 
interests of the perfumer in the house of Popinot and 
Company were sold to the said Popinot for the sum of 
forty-eight thousand francs. The business of “ The Queen 
of Roses ” was bought by Celestin Crevel at fifty-seven 
thousand francs, with the lease, the fixtures, the mer- 
chandise, furniture, and all rights in the Paste of Sultans 
and the Carminative Balm, with twelve years’ lease of 
the manufactories, whose various appliances were also 
sold to him. The assets when liquidated came to one 
hundred and ninety-five thousand francs, to which the 
assignees added seventy thousand produced by Birot- 
teau’s claims in the liquidation of the “unfortunate” 


360 


CSsar Birotteau, 


Roguin. Thus the total amount made over to Cesar's 
creditors was two hundred and fift^-five thousand francs. 
The debts amounted to four hundred and forty thousand ; 
consequentl3’’, the creditors received more than fift}" per 
cent on their claims. 

Bankruptc}" is a species of chemical transmutation, 
from which a clever merchant tries to emerge in fresh 
shape. Birotteau, distilled to the last drop in this re- 
tort, gave a result which made du Tillet furious. Du 
Tillet looked to see a dishonorable failure ; he saw an 
honorable one. Caring little for his own gains, though 
he was about to get possession of the lands around 
the Madeleine without ever drawing his purse-strings, 
he wanted to see his old master dishonored, lost, and 
vilified. The creditors at the general meeting would 
undoubtedly show the poor man that they respected 
him. 

By degrees, as Birotteau’s courage came back to him, 
Pillerault, like a wise doctor, informed him, b^" gradual 
doses, of the transactions resulting from his failure. 
These harsh tidings were like so many blows. A mer- 
chant cannot learn without a shock the depreciation of 
propert}" which represents to him so much mone}", so 
much solicitude, so much labor. The facts his uncle 
now told him petrified the poor man. 

“ Fifty-seven thousand francs for ‘ The Queen of 
Roses ’ ! Wh3% the shop alone cost ten thousand ; the 
appartement cost forty thousand ; the mere outlay on 
the manufactories, the utensils, the frames, the boilers, 
cost thirty thousand. Why ! at fifty per cent abatement, 
if my creditors allow me that, there would still be ten 
thousand francs worth of property in the shop. Why I 


C6mr Birotteau* 


361 


the Paste and the Balm are solid property, — worth as 
much as a farm ! ” 

Poor Cesar’s jeremiads made no impression upon 
Pillerault. The old merchant took them as a horse 
takes a down-pour ; but he was alarmed by the gloomy 
silence Birotteau maintained when it was a question of 
the meeting. Those who comprehend the vanities and 
weaknesses which in all social spheres beset mankind, 
will know what a martyrdom it was for this poor man 
to enter as a bankrupt the commercial tribunal of jus- 
tice where he once sat as judge ; to meet affronts where 
so often he had been thanked for services rendered, — 
he, Birotteau, whose inflexible opinions about bank- 
ruptcy were so well known ; he who had said, “ A man 
may be honest till he fails, but he comes out of a meet- 
ing of his creditors a swindler.” Pillerault watched for 
the right moment to familiarize Cesar’s mind with the 
thought of appearing before his creditors as the law de- 
mands. The thought killed him. His mute grief and 
resignation made a deep impression on his uncle, who 
often heard him at night, through the partitiuu crying 
out to himself, “ Never ! never ! I will die sooner.” 

Pillerault, a strong man, — strong through the simplic- 
ity of his life, — was able to understand weakness. He 
resolved to spare Cesar the anguish of appearing before 
his creditors, — a terrible scene which the law renders in- 
evitable, and to which, indeed, he might succumb. On 
this point the law is precise, formal, and not to be 
evaded. The merchant who refused to appear would, 
for that act alone, be brought before the cnminal police 
courts. But though the law compels the bankrupt to 
appear, it has no power to oblige the creditor to do so. 


362 


CSsar Birotteau. 


A meeting of creditors is a ceremon}’ of no real imp&i> 
tance except in special cases, — when, for instance, a 
swindler is to be dispossessed and a coalition among 
the creditors agreed upon, when there is difference of 
opinion between the privileged creditors and the unse- 
cured creditors, or when the concordat is specially 
dishonest, and the bankrupt is in need of a deceptive 
majority. But in the case of a failure when all has been 
given up, the meeting is a mere formality. Pillerault 
went to each creditor, one after the other, and asked him 
to give his proxj^ to his attorney. Every creditor, ex- 
cept du Tillet, sincerely pitied Cesar, after striking him 
down. Each knew that his conduct was scrupulously 
honest, that his books were regular, and his business as 
clear as the day. All were pleased to find no ga}’ and 
illegitimate creditor ” among them. Molineux, first the 
agent and then the provisional assignee, had found in 
CesaPs house everything the poor man owned, even the 
engraving of Hero and Leander which Popinot had 
given him, his personal trinkets, his breast-pin, his gold 
buckle^, iiis two watches, — things which an honest man 
might have taken without thinking himself less than 
honest. Constance had left her modest jewel-case. 
This touching obedience to the law struck the commer- 
cial mind keenly. Birotteau’s enemies called it foolish- 
ness ; but men of sense held it up in its true light as a 
magnificent supererogation of integrity. In two months 
the opinion of the Bourse had changed ; every one, even 
those who were most indifferent, admitted this failure 
to be a rare commercial wonder, seldom seen in the 
markets of Paris. Thus the creditors, knowing that 
they were secure of nearly sixty per cent of their claims. 


CSsar Birotteau. 


868 


were very ready to do what Pillerault asked of them. 
The solicitors of the commercial courts are few in 
number ; it therefore happened that several creditors 
employed the same man, giving him their proxies. 
Pillerault finally succeeded in reducing the formidable 
assemblage to three solicitors, himself, Ragon, the two 
assignees, and the commissioner. 

Early in the morning of the solemn day, Pillerault 
said to his nephew, — 

“ Cesar, you can go to j’our meeting to-day without 
fear ; nobody will be there.” 

Monsieur Ragon wished to accompany his debtor. 
When the former master of “ The Queen of Roses ” first 
made known the wish in his little dry voice, his ex- 
successor turned pale ; but the good old man opened 
his arms, and Birotteau threw himself into them as a 
child into the arms of its father, and the two perfumers 
mingled their tears. The bankrupt gathered courage 
as he felt the indulgence shown to him, and he got into 
the coach with his uncle and Ragon. Precisely at half 
past ten o’clock the three reached the cloister Saint- 
Merri, where the Court of Commerce was then held. 
At that hour there was no one in the Hall of Bank- 
ruptcy. The da}" and the hour had been chosen by 
agreement with the judge and the assignees. The three 
solicitors were already there on behalf of their clients. 
There was nothing, therefore, to distress or intimidate 
Cdsar Birotteau ; yet the poor man could not enter the 
oflSce of Monsieur Camusot — which chanced to be the 
one he had formerly occupied — without deep emotion, 
and he shuddered as he passed through the Hall of 
Bankruptcy. 


364 


CSsar Birotteau. 


“It is cold,” said Monsieur Camusot to Birotteau. 
“ I am sure these gentlemen will not be sorry to stay 
here, instead of our going to freeze in the Hall.” He 
did not say the word “Bankruptcy.” “ Gentlemen, be 
seated.” 

Each took his seat, and the judge gave his own arm^ 
chair to Birotteau, who was bewildered. The solicitors 
and the assignees signed the papers. 

“ In consideration of the surrender of your entire 
property, said Camusot to Birotteau, “your creditors 
unanimously agree to relinquish the rest of their claims. 
Your certificate is couched in terms which may well 
soften your pain ; your solicitor will see that it is 
promptly recorded ; you are now free. All the judges 
of this court, dear Monsieur Birotteau,” said Camusot, 
taking him by the hand, “ feel for your position, and 
are not surprised at your courage ; none have failed to 
do justice to your integrity. In the midst of a great 
misfortune you have been worth}" of what 3"Ou once were 
here. I have been in business for twenty years, and 
this is only the second time that I have seen a fallen 
merchant gaining, instead of losing, public respect.” 

Birotteau took the hands of the judge and wrung 
them, with tears in his eyes. Camusot asked him what 
he now meant to do. Birotteau replied that he should 
work till he had paid his creditors in full to the last 
penny. 

“ If to accomplish that noble task you should ever 
want a few thousand francs, you will alwa3"s find them 
with me,” said Camusot. “ I would give them with 
a great deal of pleasure to witness a deed so rare in 
Paris.” 


CSsar Birotteau, 


365 


Pillerault, Ragon, and Birotteau retired. 

“ Well ! that was n’t the ocean to drink,” said Pille- 
rault, as they left the court-room. 

“I recognize 3’our hand in it,” said the poor man, 
much affected. 

“Now, here you are, free, and we are only a few 
steps from the Rue des Cinq-Diamants ; come and see 
my nephew,” said Ragon. 

A cruel pang shot through Cesar’s heart when he saw 
Constance sitting in a little office in the damp, dark en- 
tresol above the shop, whose single window was one 
third darkened by a sign which intercepted the daylight 
and bore the name, — A. Popinot. 

“ Behold a lieutenant of Alexander,” said Cdsar, with 
the gayety of grief, pointing to the sign. 

This forced gayet}’, through which an inextinguish- 
able sense of the superiority which Birotteau attributed 
to himself was naively revealed, made Ragon shudder 
in spite of his seventy years. Cesar saw his wife pass- 
ing down letters and papers for Popinot to sign; he 
could neither restrain his tears nor keep his face from 
turning pale. 

“ Good-morning, my friend,” she said to him, smiling. 

“ I do not ask if you are comfortable here,” said 
C4sar, looking at Popinot. 

“ As if I were living with my own son,” she answered, 
with a tender manner that struck her husband. 

Birotteau took Popinot and kissed him, sajdng, — 

“ I have lost the right, forever, of calling him my 
son.” 

‘ ‘ Let us hope ! ” said Popinot. ‘ ‘ Your oil succeeds — 
thanks to my advertisements in the newspapers, and to 


366 


CSsar Birotteau. 


Gaudissart, who has travelled over the whole of France ; 
he has inundated the country with placards and pros- 
pectuses ; he is now at Strasburg getting the prospec- 
tuses printed in the German language, and he is about 
to descend, like an invasion, upon Germany itself. 
AVe have received orders for three thousand gross.” 

“ Three thousand gross ! ” exclaimed Cesar. 

“ And I have bought a piece of land in the Faubourg 
Saint-Marceau, — not dear, — where I am building a 
manufactory.” 

“ Wife,” whispered Cesar to Constance, “ with a little 
help we might have pulled through.” 

After that fatal day Cesar, his wife, and daughter un- 
derstood each other. The poor clerk resolved to attain 
an end which, if not impossible, was at least gigantic 
in its enterprise, — nameh’, the payment of his debts to 
their last penny. These three beings, — father, mother, 
daughter, — bound together by the tie of a passionate in- 
tegrity, became misers, den3dng themselves ever^dhing ; 
a farthing was sacred in their e^^es. Out of sheer cal- 
culation Cesarine threw herself into her business with 
the devotion of a 3'oung girl. She sat up at night, tax- 
ing her ingenuity to find ways of increasing the pros- 
perity of the establishment, and displaying an innate 
commercial talent. The masters of the house were 
obliged to check her ardor for work ; the}" rewarded her 
by presents, but she refused all articles of dress and 
the jewels which they offered her. Money ! money ! 
was her cry. Every month she carried her salary and 
her little earnings to her uncle Pillerault. Cesar did 
the same ; so did Madame Birotteau. All three, feel- 


Cimr Birotteau. 


367 


ing themselves incapable, dared not take upon them- 
selves the responsibility of managing their money, and 
they made over to Pillerault the whole business of in- 
vesting their savings. Returning thus to business, the 
latter made the most of these funds by negotiations at 
the Bourse. It was known afterwards that he had been 
helped in this work by Jules Desmarets and Joseph 
Lebas, both of whom were eager to point out opportu- 
nities which Pillerault might take without risk. 

Cesar, though he lived with his uncle, never ventured 
to question him as to what was done with the money 
acquired by his labor and that of his wife and daughter. 
He walked the streets with a bowed head, hiding from 
every eye his stricken, dull, distraught face. He felt, 
with self-reproach, that the cloth he wore was too good 
for him. 

“At least,” he said to Pillerault, with a look that 
was angelic, “ I do not eat the bread of my creditors. 
Your bread is sweet to me, though it is j'our pity that 
gives it ; thanks to your sacred charity, I do not steal a 
farthing of my salary ! ” 

The merchants, his old associates, who met the clerk 
could see no vestige of the perfumer. Even careless 
minds gained an idea of the immensity of human disas- 
ter from the aspect of this man, on whose face soitow 
had cast its black pall, who revealed the havoc caused 
by that which had never before appeared in him, — by 
thought ! N'est pas detruit qui veut. Light-minded 
people, devoid of conscience, to whom all things are 
indifferent, can never present such a spectacle of dis- 
aster. Religion alone sets a special seal upon fallen 
human beings; they believe in a future, in a divine 


368 


CSsar Birotteau, 


Providence ; within them gleams a light that marks 
them, a look of saintly resignation mingled with hope, 
which lends them a certain tender emotion ; the}’ realize 
all that they have lost, like the exiled angel weeping at 
the gates of heaven. Bankrupts are forbidden to enter 
the Bourse. Cesar, driven from the regions of integrity, 
was like an angel sighing for pardon. For fourteen 
months he lived on, full of religious thoughts with 
which his fall inspired him, and denying himself every 
pleasure. Though sure of the Ragons’ friendship, nothing 
could induce him to dine with them, nor with the Lebas, 
nor the Matifats, nor the Protez and Chiffrevilles, not 
even with Monsieur Vauquelin ; all of whom were eager 
to do honor to his rare virtue. Cesar preferred to be 
alone in his room rather than meet the eye of a credi- 
tor. The warmest greetings of his friends reminded 
him the more bitterly of his position. Constance and 
Cesarine went nowhere. On Sundays and fete days, 
the only days when they were at liberty, the two 
women went to fetch Cesar at the hour for Mass, and 
they stayed with him at Pillerault’s after their religious 
duties were accomplished. Pillerault often invited the 
Abbe Loraux, whose words sustained Cesar in this life 
of trial. And in this way their lives were spent. The 
old ironmonger had too tough a fibre of integrity not to 
approve of Cesar’s sensitive honor. His mind, how- 
ever, turned on increasing the number of persons 
among whom the poor bankrupt might show himself 
with an open brow, and an eye that could meet the 
eyes of his fellows. 


CSsar Birotteau. 


869 


VIL 

In the month of May, 1820, this family, ever grap- 
pling with adversity, received a first reward for its 
efforts at a little fete which Pillerault, the arbiter of its 
destinies, prepared for it. The last Sunday of that 
month was the anniversar}^ of the day on which Con- 
stance had consented to marry Cesar. Pillerault, in 
concert with the Ragons, hired a little country-house at 
Sceaux, and the worthy old ironmonger silently prepared 
a joyous house-warming. 

“ Cesar,” said Pillerault, on the Saturday evening, 
“ to-morrow we are all going into the country, and you 
must come.” 

Cesar, who wrote a superb hand, spent his evenings 
in copying for Derville and other lawyers. On Sun- 
days, justified by ecclesiastical permission, he worked 
like a negro. 

“ No,” he said, “ Monsieur Derville is waiting for a 
guardianship account.” 

“Your wife and daughter ought to have some re- 
ward. You will meet none but our particular friends, — 
the Abbe Loraux, the Ragons, Popinot, and his uncle. 
Besides, I wish it.” 

C^sar and his wife, carried along by the whirlwind of 
business, had never revisited Sceaux, though from time 
to time each longed to see once more the tree under 
which the head-clerk of “The Queen of Roses” had 

24 


370 


CSsar Birotteau, 


fainted with joy. During the trip, which Cesar made in 
a hackney-coach with his wife and daughter, and Popi- 
not who escorted them, Constance cast many meaning 
glances at her husband without bringing to his lips a 
single smile. She whispered a few words in his ear ; for 
all answer he shook his head. The soft signs of her 
tenderness, ever-present yet at the moment forced, in- 
stead of brightening Cesar’s face made it more sombre, 
and brought the long-repressed tears into his eyes. Poor 
man ! he had gone over this road twenty years before, 
young, prosperous, full of hope, the lover of a girl as 
beautiful as their own Cesarine ; he was dreaming then 
of happiness. To-day, in the coach before him, sat his 
noble child pale and worn by vigils, and his brave wife, 
whose only beauty now was that of cities through whose 
streets have flowed the lava waves of a volcano. Love 
alone remained to him ! Cesar’s sadness smothered the 
joy that welled up in the hearts of Cesarine and An- 
selme, who embodied to his eyes the charming scene of 
other days. 

“Be happ3", my children ! you have earned the right,” 
said the poor father in heart-rending tones. “ You may 
love without one bitter thought.” 

As he said these words he took his wife’s hands and 
kissed them with a sacred and admiring affection which 
touched Constance more than the brightest gayety. 
When they reached the house where Pillerault, the 
Ragons, the Abb^ Loraux, and Popinot the judge were 
waiting for them, these five choice people assumed an 
air and manner and speech which put Cesar at ^is 
ease ; for all were deeply moved to see him still on the 
morrow of his great disaster. 


CSsar Birotteau, 


371 


“ Go aod take a walk in the Aulnay woods,” said 
PUlerault, putting Cesar’s hand into that of Constance ; 
‘ ‘ go with Ansehne and Cesarine ! but come back by 
four o’clock.” 

“Poor souls, we should be a restraint upon them,” 
said Madame Ragon, touched by the deep grief of her 
debtor. “ He will be very happy presently.” 

“It is repentance without sin,” said the Abb4 
Loraux. 

“ He could rise to greatness only through adversity,” 
said the judge. 

To forget is the great secret of strong, creative na- 
tures, — to forget, in the way of Nature herself, who 
knows no past, who begins afresh, at every hour, the 
mysteries of her untiring travail. 

Feeble existences, like that of Birotteau, live sunk in 
sorrows, instead of transmuting them into doctrines of 
experience : they let them saturate their being, and are 
worn-out, finally, by falling more and more under the 
weight of past misfortunes. 

When the two couples reached the path which leads 
to the woods of Aulnay, placed like a crown upon the 
prettiest hillside in the neighborhood of Paris, and from 
which the Vallee-aux-Loups is seen in all its coquetr}*, 
the beauty of the day, the charm of the landscape, the 
first spring verdure, the delicious memoiy of the hap- 
piest day of all his youth, loosened the tight chords in 
Cesar’s soul ; he pressed the arm of his wife against his 
beating heart; his eye was no longer glassy, for the 
light of pleasure once more brightened in it. 

“At last,” said Constance to her husband, “ I see 
you again, my poor Cesar. I think we have all behaved 


372 


Cisar Birotteau, 


well enough to allow ourselves a little pleasure now and 
then/' 

“ Ought I?” said the poor man. “ Ah ! Constance, 
th}’^ affection is all that remains to me. Yes, I have 
lost even my old self-confidence ; I have no strength 
left ; my only desire is that I may live to die discharged 
of debt on earth. Thou, dear wife, thou who art my 
wisdom and my prudence, thou whose e3’es saw clear, 
thou who art irreproachable, thou canst have pleasure. 
I alone — of us three — am guilty. Eighteen months 
ago, in the midst of that fatal ball, I saw my Constance, 
the onlj" woman I have ever loved, more beautiful than 
the young girl I followed along this path twenty years 
ago — like our children ^’onder ! In eighteen months 
I have blasted that beaut}", — my pride, my legitimate 
and sanctioned pride. I love thee better since I know 
thee well. Oh, dear / " he said, giving to the word a 
tone which reached to the inmost heart of his wife, 
“I would rather have thee scold me, than see thee 
so tender to my pain.” 

“ I did not think,” she said, “ that after twenty years 
of married life the love of a wife for her husband could 
deepen.” 

These words drove from Cesar's mind, for one brief 
moment, all his sorrows ; his heart was so true that 
they were to him a fortune. He walked forward almost 
joyously to their tree, which by chance had not been 
felled. Husband and wife sat down beneath it, watch- 
ing Anselme and Cesarine, who were sauntering across 
the grassy slope without perceiving them, thinking 
probably that they were still following. 

“ Mademoiselle,” Anselme was saying, “do not think 


C^sar Birotteau, 


373 


me so base and grasping as to profit by your father’s 
share which I have acquired in the Cephalic Oil. I 
am keeping his share for him ; I nurse it with careful 
love. I invest the profits ; if there is any loss I pul it 
to my own account. We can onl}’ belong to one another 
on the day when jo\iv father is restored to his position, 
free of debt. I work for that day with aU the strength 
that love has given me.” 

“ Will it come soon ? ” she said. 

“ Soon,” said Popinot. The word was uttered in a 
tone so full of meaning, that the chaste and pure young 
girl inclined her head to her dear Anselme, who laid 
an eager and respectful kiss upon her brow, — so noble 
was her gesture and action. 

“Papa, all is well,” she said to Cesar with a little 
air of confidence. “Be good and sweet; talk to us, 
put away that sad look.” 

When this familj^, so tenderly bound together, re- 
entered the house, even Cesar, little observing as he 
was, saw a change in the manner of the Ragons which 
seemed to denote some remarkable event. The greet- 
ing of Madame Ragon was particularly impressive ; 
her look and accent seemed to saj^ to C4sar, “ We are 
paid.” 

At the dessert, the notary of Sceaux appeared. Piller- 
ault made him sit down, and then looked at Cesar, who 
began to suspect a surprise, though he was far indeed 
from imagining the extent of it. 

“ My nephew, the savings of your wife, your daugh- 
ter, and yourself, for the last eighteen months, amounted 
to twenty thousand francs. I have received thirty thou- 
sand as the dividend on my claim. We have therefore 


374 


Ci%ar Birotteau, 


fifty thousand francs to divide among your creditors. 
Monsieur Ragon has received thirty thousand francs 
for his dividend, and you have now paid him the balance 
of his claim in full, interest included, for which mon- 
sieur here, the notary of Sceaux, has brought you a re- 
ceipt. The rest of the money is with Crottat, ready 
for Lourdois, Madame Madou, the mason, carpenter, 
and the other most pressing creditors. Next year, we 
may do as well. With time and patience we can go 
far.” 

Birotteau’s jo}" is not to be described ; he threw him- 
self into his uncle’s arms, weeping. 

‘ ‘ May he not wear his cross ? ” said Ragon to the 
Abb4 Loraux. 

The confessor fastened the red ribbon to Cesar’s 
buttonhole. The poor clerk looked at himself again 
and again during the evening in the mirrors of the 
salon, manifesting a joy at which people thinking them- 
selves superior might have laughed, but which these 
good bourgeois thought quite natural. 

The next day Birotteau went^to find Madame Madou. 

“Ah, there you are, good soul !” she cried. “I 
did n’t recognize you, you have turned so gray. Yet 
you don’t really drudge, you people ; 3^ou ’ve got good 
places. As for me, I work like a turnspit that deserves 
baptism.” 

“ But, madame — ” 

“Never mind, I don’t mean it as a reproach,” she 
said. “You have got my receipt.” 

“ I came to tell you that I shall pay 3^ou to-morrow, 
at Monsieur Crottat’s, the rest of your claim in full, 
with interest.” 


Cimr Birotteau, 


875 


“ Is that true?” 

“ Be there at eleven o'clock.” 

“ Hey ! there 's honor for you ! good measure and 
running over ! ” she cried with naive admiration. “ Look 
here, m3" good monsieur, I am doing a fine trade with 
your little red-head. He ’s a nice 3'oung fellow ; he lets 
me earn a fair penn}" without haggling over it, so that 
I ma}" get an equivalent for that loss. Well, I'll 
give 3’ou a receipt in full, an3'how ; you keep the 
money, m3" poor old man ! La Madou may get in a 
fur3", and she does scold ; but she has got something 
here — ” she cried, thumping the most voluminous 
mounds of fiesh ever yet seen in the markets. 

“ No,” said Birotteau, “ the law is plain. I wish to 
pa3’ 3’ou in full.” 

“Then I won't deny 3-011 the pleasure,” she said; 
‘ ‘ and to-morrow I '11 trumpet 3"our conduct through the 
markets. Ha ! it 's rare, rare ! ” 

The worthy man had much the same scene, with va- 
riations, at Lourdois the house painter's, father-in-law 
of Crottat. It was raining ; Cesar left his umbrella at 
the corner of the door. The prosperous painter, seeing 
the water trickling into the room where he was break- 
fasting with his wife, was not tender. 

“ Come, what do you want, m3" poor Pere Birotteau?” 
he said, in the hard tone which some people take to im- 
portunate beggars. 

“ Monsieur, has not your son-in-law told 3"ou — ” 

“ What?” cried Lourdois, expecting some appeal. 

“ To be at his oflSce this morning at half past eleven, 
and give me a receipt for the pa3"ment of 3"Our claims in 
full, with interest?” 


376 


CSsar Birotteau. 


“Ah, that’s another thing! Sit down, Monsieur 
Birotteau, and eat a mouthful with us.” 

“Do us the pleasure to share our breakfast,” said 
Madame Lourdois. 

“ You are doing well, then?” asked the fat Lourdois. 

“No, monsieur, I have lived from hand to mouth, 
that I might scrape up this money ; but I hope, in time, 
to repair the wrongs I have done to my neighbor.” 

“Ah!” said the painter, swallowing a mouthful of 
pate de foie gras^ “3’ou are truly a man of honor.” 

“ What is Madame Birotteau doing? ” asked Madame 
Lourdois. 

“ She is keeping the books of Monsieur Anselme 
Popinot.” 

“Poor people!” said Madame Lourdois, in a low 
voice to her husband. 

“ If you ever need me, m3’ dear Monsieur Birotteau, 
come and see me,” said Lourdois. “ I might help — ” 

“ I do need you — at eleven o’clock to-day, mon- 
sieur,” said Birotteau, retiring. 

This first result gave courage to the poor bankrupt, 
but not peace of mind. On the contrar3’, the thought of 
regaining his honor agitated his life inordinately ; he 
completely lost the natural color of his cheeks, his e3"es 
grew sunken and dim, and his face hollow. When old 
acquaintances met him, in the morning at eight o’clock 
or in the evening at four, as he went to and from the 
Rue de I’Oratoire, wearing the surtout coat he wore at 
the time of his fall, and which he husbanded as a pqor 
sub-lieutenant husbands his uniform, — his hair entirely 
white, his face pale, his manner timid, — some few 


Cimr Birotteau, 


877 


would stop him in spite of himself; for his eye was 
alert to avoid those he knew as he crept along beside 
the walls, like a thief. 

“Your conduct is known, my friend,” said one; 
“ everybody regrets the sternness with which you treat 
yourself, also your wife and daughter.” 

“ Take a little more time,” said others ; “the wounds 
of money do not kill.” 

“No, but the wounds of the soul do,” the poor worn 
C4sar answered one day to his friend Matifat. 

At the beginning of the year 1822, the Canal Saint- 
Martin was begun. Land in the Faubourg du Temple 
increased enormousl}' in value. The canal would cut 
through the propert}^ which du Tillet had bought of 
C^sar Birotteau. The company who obtained the right 
of building it agreed to pay the banker an exorbitant 
sum, provided they could take possession within a given 
time. The lease Cesar had granted to Popinot, which 
went with the sale to du Tillet, now hindered the trans- 
fer to the canal company. The banker came to the Rue 
des Cinq-Diamants to see the druggist. If du Tillet 
were indifferent to Po^iinot, it is very certain that the 
lover of Cesarine felt an instinctive hatred for du Tillet. 
He knew nothing of the theft and the infamous scheme 
of the prosperous banker, but an inward voice cried to 
him, “The man is an unpunished rascal.” Popinot 
would never have transacted the smallest business with 
him ; du Tillet’s very presence was odious to his feel- 
ings. Under the present circumstances it was doubly 
so, for the banker was now enriched through the forced 
spoliation of his former master ; the lands about the 


378 


Cimr Birotteau. 


Madeleine, as well as those in the Faubourg du Temple, 
were beginning to rise in price, and to foreshadow the 
enormous value they were to reach in 1827. So that 
after du Tillet had explained the object of his visit, 
Popinot looked at him with concentrated wrath. 

“ I shall not refuse to give up my lease ; but I de- 
mand sixty thousand francs for it, and I shall not take 
one farthing less.” 

“ Sixty thousand francs ! ” exclaimed du Tillet, mak- 
ing a movement to leave the shop. 

I have fifteen years’ lease still to run ; it will, more- 
over, cost me three thousand francs a year to get other 
buildings. Therefore, sixty thousand francs, or say 
no more about it,” said Popinot, going to the back of 
the shop, where du Tillet followed him. 

The discussion grew warm, Birotteau’s name was men- 
tioned ; Madame Cesar heard it and came down, and saw 
du Tillet for the first time since the famous ball. The 
banker was unable to restrain a gesture of surprise at the 
change which had come over the beautiful woman ; he 
lowered his eyes, shocked at the result of his own work. 

“Monsieur,” said Popinot to Madame Cesar, “is go- 
ing to make three hundred thousand francs out of your 
land, and he refuses us sixty thousand francs’ indemnity 
for our lease.” 

“ That is three thousand francs a year,” said du Tillet. 

“ Three — thousand — francs ! ” said Madame C^sar, 
slowl3% in a clear, penetrating voice. 

Du Tillet turned pale. Popinot looked at Madame 
Birotteau. There was a moment of profound silencQ, 
which made the scene still more inexplicable to 
Anselme. 


CSsar Birotteau, 


379 


“Sign your relinquishment of the lease, which I 
have made Crottat draw up,” said du Tillet, drawing 
a stamped paper from a side-pocket. “ I will give you 
a cheque on the Bank of France for sixty thousand 
francs.” 

Popinot looked at Madame Cesar without concealing 
his astonishment ; he thought he was dreaming. While 
du Tillet was writing his cheque at a high desk, Madame 
Cesar disappeared and went upstairs. The druggist 
and the banker exchanged papers. Du Tillet bowed 
coldl}' to Popinot, and went away. 

“ At last, in a few months,” thought Popinot, as he 
watched du Tillet going towards the Rue des Lombards, 
where his cabriolet was waiting, “thanks to this ex- 
traordinary affair, I shall have m3" Cesarine. Mj" poor 
little wife shall not wear herself out an3'' longer. A 
look from Madame Cesar was enough ! What secret is 
there between her and that brigand ? The whole thing 
is extraordinar3".” 

Popinot sent the cheque at once to the Bank, and went 
up to speak to Madame Birotteau ; she was not in the 
counting-room, and had doubtless gone to her chamber. 
Anselme and Constance lived like mother-in-law and 
son-in-law when people in that relation suit each other ; 
he therefore rushed up to Madame Cdsar’s appartement 
with the natural eagerness of a lover on the threshold 
of his happiness. The 3’oung man was prodigiously 
surprised to find her, as he sprang like a cat into the 
room, reading a letter from du Tillet, whose handwrit- 
ing he recognized at a glance. A lighted candle, and 
the black and quivering phantoms of burned letters 
lying on the fioor made him shudder, for his quick eyes 


380 


Cimr Birotteau, 


caught the following words in the letter which Con- 
stance held in her hand : — 

“ I adore you I You know it well, angel of my life, 
and— 

“What power have you over du Tillet that could 
force him to agree to such terms ? ” he said with a con- 
vulsive laugh that came from repressed suspicion. 

“ Do not let us speak of that,” she said, showing 
great distress. 

“ No,” said Popinot, bewildered ; “ let us rather talk 
of the end of all your troubles.” Anselme turned on 
his heel towards the window, and drummed with his 
fingers on the panes as he gazed into the court. 
“ Well,” he said to himself, “ even if she did love du 
Tillet, is that any reason why I should not behave like 
an honorable man ? ” 

“What is the matter, my child?” said the poor 
woman. 

“ The total of the net profits of Cephalic Oil mount 
up to two hundred and forty -two thousand francs ; half 
of that is one hundred and twenty-one thousand,” said 
Popinot, brusquely. “ If I withdraw from that amount 
the fort3"-eight thousand francs which I paid to Mon- 
sieur Birotteau, there remains seven t^^-three thousand, 
which, joined to these sixt}" thousand paid for the re- 
linquishment of the lease, gives you one hundred and 
thirty-three thousand francs.” 

Madame Cesar listened with fiuctuations of joy which 
made her tremble so violently that Popinot could hear 
the beating of her heart. 

“Well, I have always considered Monsieur Birotteau 
as my partner,” he went on ; “we can use this sum to 


Cizar Birotteau, 


881 


pay his creditors in full. Add the twenty-eight thou- 
sand 3'OU have saved and placed in our uncle Pilleraulfs 
hands, and we have one hundred and sixt3^-one thou- 
sand francs. Our uncle will not refuse his receipt 
for his own claim of twent3’-five thousand. No hu- 
man power can deprive me of the right of lending 
to my father-in-law, b3^ anticipating our profits of 
next 3’ear, the necessary sum to make up the total 
amount due to his creditor, and — he — will — be — 
reinstated — restored — ” 

“Restored!*’ cried Madame Cesar, falling on her 
knees beside a chair. She joined her hands and said a 
prayer ; as she did so, the letter slid from her fingers. 
“Dear Anselme,” she said, crossing herself, “dear 
son ! ” She took his head in her hands, kissed him 
on the forehead, pressed him to her heart, and seemed 
for a moment beside herself. “ Cesarine is thine ! My 
daughter will be happy at last. She can leave that 
shop where she is killing herself — ” 

“ For love?” said Popinot. 

“Yes,” answered the mother, smiling. 

“Listen to a little secret,” said Popinot, glancing 
at the fatal letter from a corner of his eye. “ I helped 
Celestin to buy 3'our business ; but I did it on one con- 
dition, — 3"our appartement was to be kept exactly as 
you left it. I had an idea in my head, though I never 
thought that chance would favor it so much. Celestin 
is bound to sub-let to you your old appartement, where 
he has never set foot, and where all the furniture will 
be 3^ours. I have kept the second story, where I shall 
live with Cesarine, who shall never leave you. After 
our marriage I shall come and pass the da3's from eight 


382 


Cimr Birotteau, 


in the morning till six in the evening here. I will buy 
out Monsieur Cesar’s share in this business for a hun- 
dred thousand francs, and that will give you an income 
to live on. Shall you not be happy ? ” 

“ Tell me no more, Anselme, or I shall go out of my 
mind.” 

The angelic attitude of Madame Cesar, the puritj' of 
her eyes, the innocence of her candid brow, contradicted 
so gloriously the thoughts which surged in the lover’s 
brain that he resolved to make an end of their mon- 
strosities forever. Sin was incompatible with the life 
and sentiments of such a woman. 

“My dear, adored mother,” said Anselme, “in spite 
of myself, a horrible suspicion has entered my soul. If 
you wish to see me happy, you will put an end to it at 
once.” 

Popinot stretched out his hand and picked up the 
letter. 

“Without intending it,” he resumed, alarmed at the 
terror painted on Constance’s face, “I read the first 
words of this letter of du Tillet. The words coincide 
in a singular manner with the power you have just shown 
in forcing that man to accept my absurd exactions ; any 
man would explain it as the devil explains it to me, in 
spite of myself. Your look — three words suffice — ” 

“ Stop ! ” said Madame Cesar, taking the letter and 
burning it. “My son, I am severely punished for a 
trifling error. You shall know all, Anselme. I shall 
not allow a suspicion inspired by her mother to injure 
my daughter ; and besides, I can speak without blush- 
ing. What I now tell you, I could tell my husband. 
Du Tillet wished to seduce me ; I informed my husband 


CSsaT Birotteau, 


383 


of it, and du Tillet was to have been dismissed. On 
the very day my husband was about to send him away, 
he robbed us of three thousand francs.” 

“I was sure of it!” said Popinot, expressing his 
hatred bj^ the tones of his voice. 

“ Anselme, 3’our future, 3’our happiness, demand 
this confidence ; but 3^ou must let it die in your heart, 
just as it is dead in mine and in Cesar’s. Do you not 
remember how my husband scolded us for an error in 
the accounts ? Monsieur Birotteau, to avoid a police- 
court which might have destroj^ed the man for life, no 
doubt placed in the desk three thousand francs, — the 
price of that cashmere shawl which I did not receive 
.till three 3’ears later. All this explains the scene. 
Alas ! m3’' dear child, I must admit m3’^ foolishness ; du 
Tillet wrote me three love-letters, which pictured him 
so well that I kept them,” she said, lowering her e3"es 
and sighing, “ as a curiosity. I have not re-read them 
more than once ; still, it was imprudent to keep them. 
When I saw du Tillet just now I was reminded of them, 
and I came upstairs to burn them ; I was looking over 
the last as 3’ou came in. That ’s the whole story, my 
friend.” 

Anselme knelt for an instant beside her and kissed 
her hand with an unspeakable emotion, which brought 
tears into the eyes of both ; Madame Cesar raised 
him, stretched out her arms and pressed him to her 
heart. 

This day was destined to be a day of joy to Cdsar. 
The private secretary of the king. Monsieur de Van- 
denesse, called at the Sinking-Fund Office to find 


384 


CSsar Birotteau, 


him. They walked out together into the little court- 
yard. 

“Monsieur Birotteau/’ said the Vicomte de Van- 
denesse, “ your efforts to pay your creditors in full have 
accidentally become known to the king. His Majesty, 
touched by such rare conduct, and hearing that through 
humility you no longer wear the cross of the Legion 
of honor, has sent me to command you to put it on 
again. Moreover, wishing to help you in meeting 3^our 
obligations, he has charged me to give you this sum 
from his privy purse, regretting that he is unable to 
make it larger. Let this be a profound secret. His 
Majesty thinks it derogatory to the royal dignity to have 
his good deeds divulged,” said the private secretar^^, 
putting six thousand francs into the hand of the poor 
clerk, who listened to this speech with unutterable emo- 
tion. The words that came to his lips were discon- 
nected and stammering. Vandenesse waved his hand 
to him, smiling, and went away. 

The principle which actuated poor Cdsar is so rare 
in Paris that his conduct by degrees attracted admira- 
tion. Joseph Lebas, Popinot the judge, Camusot, the 
Abbe Loraux, Ragon, the head of the important house 
where Cesarine was employed, Lourdois, Monsieur de 
la Billardiere, and others, talked of it. Public opinion, 
undergoing a change, now lauded him to the skies. 

“He is indeed a man of honor ! ” The phrase even 
sounded in Cesar’s ears as he passed along the streets, 
and caused him the emotion an author feels when he 
hears the muttered words : “ That is he ! ” This noble 
recovery of credit enraged du Tibet. Cesar’s first 
thought on receiving the bank-notes sent by the king 


CSsar Birotteau, 


885 


?ras to use them in paying the debt still due to his 
former clerk. The worthy man went to the Rue de 
la Chaussee d’Antin just as the banker was returning 
from the Bourse ; they met upon the stairway. 

“Well, my poor Birotteau!” said du Tillet, with » 
stealthy glance. 

“ Poor ! ” exclaimed the debtor proudly, “ I am very 
rich. I shall lay my head this night upon mj^ pillow 
with the happiness of knowing that I have paid j’ou in 
full.” 

This speech, ringing with integrity, sent a sharp 
pang through du Tillet. In spite of the esteem he 
publicly enjoyed, he did not esteem himself; an inex- 
tinguishable voice cried aloud within his soul, “ The 
man is sublime ! ” 

“ Pay me?” he said ; “ why, what business are you 
doing? ” 

Feeling sure that du Tillet would not repeat what he 
told him, Birotteau answered : “ I shall never go back 
to business, monsieur. No human power could have 
foreseen what has happened to me. Who knows that 
I might not be the victim of another Roguin ? But my 
conduct has been placed under the eyes of the king ; his 
heart has deigned to sympathize with my efforts ; he has 
encouraged them b}" sending me a sum of money large 
enough to — ” 

“ Do you want a receipt?” said du Tillet, interrupt- 
ing him : ‘ ‘ are 3"ou going to pa^" — ” 

“ In full, with interest. I must ask 3"Ou to come with 
me now to Monsieur Crottat, only two steps from 
here.” 

“ Before a notary?” 

as 


386 


C^mr Birotteau, 


“ Monsieur, I am not forbidden to aim at my com- 
plete reinstatement ; to obtain it, all deeds and receipts 
must be legal and undeniable.” 

“ Come, then,” said du Tillet, going out with Birot- 
teau ; “ it is only a step. But where did you take all 
that money from ? ” 

“ I have not taken it,” said Cesar ; “ I have earned 
it by the sweat of my brow.” 

“You owe an enormous sum to Claparon.” 

‘ ‘ Alas ! yes ; that is my largest debt. I think some- 
times I shall die before I pay it.” 

“ You never can pay it,” said du Tillet harshly. 

“ He is right,” thought Birotteau. 

As he went home the poor man passed, inadvertently, 
along the Rue Saint-Honore ; for he was in the habit of 
making a circuit to avoid seeing his shop and the win- 
dows of his former home. For the first time since his 
fall he saw the house where eighteen years of happiness 
had been effaced by the anguish of three months. 

“I hoped to end my days there,” he thought; and 
he hastened his steps, for he caught sight of the new 
sign, — 

C:fiLESTIlSr CREVEL, 

Successor to C^sar Birotteau. 

“ Am I dazzled, am I going blind? Was that C^sar- 
ine ? ” he cried, recollecting a blond head he had seen 
at the window. 

He had actually seen his daughter, his wife, and 
Popinot. The lovers knew that Birotteau never passed 
before the windows of his old home, and they had cohie 
to the house to make arrangements for a fete which they 


CSsar Birotteau, 


387 


intended to give to him. This amazing apparition so 
astonished Birotteau that he stood stock-still, unable to 
move. 

“There is Monsieur Birotteau looking at his old 
house,” said Monsieur Molineux to the owner of a shop 
opposite to “ The Queen of Roses.” 

“ Poor man ! ” said the perfumer’s former neighbor ; 
“he gave a fine ball — two hundred carriages in the 
street.” 

“ I was there ; and he failed in three months,” said 
Molineux. “ I was the assignee.” 

Birotteau fled, trembling in every limb, and hastened 
back to Pillerault. 

Pillerault, who had just been informed of what had 
happened in the Rue des Cinq-Diamants, feared that 
his nephew was scarcely fit to bear the shock of joy 
which the sudden knowledge of his restoration would 
cause him ; for Pillerault was a daily witness of the 
moral struggles of the poor man, whose mind stood 
always face to face with his inflexible doctrines against 
bankruptc}^, and whose vital forces were used and spent 
at every hour. Honor was to Cesar a corpse, for 
which an Easter morning might yet dawn. This hope 
kept his sorrow incessantly active. Pillerault took upon 
himself the duty of preparing his nephew to receive the 
good news ; and when Birotteau came in he was think- 
ing over the best means of accomplishing his purpose. 
Cesar’s joy as he related the proof of interest which the 
king had bestowed upon him seemed of good augury, 
and the astonishment he expressed at seeing C^sarine 
at “ The Queen of Roses ” aflforded, Pillerault thought, 
au excellent opening. 


388 


CSsar Birotteau, 


“Well, C^sar,” said the old man, “do you know 
what is at the bottom of it? — the hurry Popinot is in 
to marry Cesarine. He cannot wait any longer ; and 
you ought not, for the sake of j^’our exaggerated ideas 
of honor, to make him pass his youth eating dry bread 
with the fumes of a good dinner under his nose. Pop- 
inot wishes to lend you the amount necessary to pay 
your creditors in full.” 

“ Then he would buy his wife,” said Birotteau. 

“ Is it not honorable to reinstate his father-in-law? ” 

“ There would be ground for contention ; besides — ” 

“ Besides,” exclaimed Pillerault, pretending anger, 
“ you may have the right to immolate yourself if you 
choose, but you have no right to immolate your 
daughter.” 

A vehement discussion ensued, which Pillerault 
designedly excited. 

“ Hey ! if Popinot lent you nothing,” cried Pillerault, 
“if he had called you his partner, if he had considered 
the price which he paid to the creditors for your share 
in the Oil as an advance upon the profits, so as not to 
strip 3"ou of everj^thing — ” 

“ I should have seemed to rob my creditors in 
collusion with him.” 

Pillerault feigned to be defeated by this argument. 
He knew the human heart well enough to be certain 
that during the night C^sar would go over the question 
in his own mind, and the mental discussion would 
accustom him to the idea of his complete vindication. 

“ But how came my wife and daughter to be in our 
old appartement? ” asked Birotteau, while they were 
dining. 


CSsar Birotteau^ 


389 


“ Anselme wants to hire it, and live there with C^sar- 
ine. Your wife is on his side. They have had the 
banns published without saying an3’thing about it, so 
as to force you to consent. Popinot says there will 
be much less merit in marrjdng Cesarine after you are 
reinstated. You take six thousand francs from the 
king, and ,you won’t accept anything from your rela- 
tions ! I can well afford to give j^ou a receipt in full for 
all that is owing to me ; do you mean to refuse it ? ” 

“ No,” said Cesar; “ but that won’t keep me from 
saving up everything to pay you.” 

“Irrational follj" ! ” cried Pillerault. “In matters 
of honor I ought to be believed. What nonsense were 
you saying just now? How have 3"ou robbed 3’our 
creditors when 3"ou have paid them all in full ? ” 

Cesar looked earnestl3' at Pillerault, and Pillerault 
was touched to see, for the first time in three years, a 
genuine smile on the face of his poor nephew. 

“It is true,” he said, “ the3^ would be paid ; but it 
would be selling my daughter.” 

“ And I wish to be bought ! ” cried Cesarine, entering 
with Popinot. 

The lovers had heard Birotteau’s last words as they 
came on tiptoe through the antechamber of their uncle’s 
little appartement, Madame Birotteau following. All 
three had driven round to the creditors who were still 
unpaid, requesting them to meet at Alexandre Crottat’s 
that evening to receive their money. The all-powerful 
logic of the enamoured Popinot triumphed in the end 
over Cesar’s scruples, though he persisted for some 
time in calling himself a debtor, and in declaring that 
he was circumventing the law by a substitution. But 


390 


CSsar Birotteau. 


the refinements of his conscience gave wa}’^ when Popi* 
not cried out : “ Do you want to kill your daughter? 

“ Kill my daughter ! ” said Cesar, thunderstruck. 

“ Well, then,” said Popinot, “I have the right to 
convey to you the sum which I conscientiously believe 
to be your share in my profits. Do you refuse it?” 

“ No,” said Cesar. 

“ Very good ; then let us go at once to Crottat and 
settle the matter, so that there may be no backing out 
of it. We will arrange about our marriage contract at 
the same time.” 

A petition for reinstatement with corroborative docu- 
ments was at once deposited by Derville at the office of 
the procureur- general of the Cour ro3’ale. 

During the month required for the legal foi-malities 
and for the publication of the banns of marriage be- 
tween Cesarine and Anselme, Birotteau was a prey to 
feverish agitation. He was restless. He feared he 
should not live till the great day when the decree for 
his vindication would be rendered. His heart throbbed, 
he said, without cause. He complained of dull pains in 
that organ, worn out as it was by emotions of sorrow, 
and now wearied with the rush of excessive joy. De- 
crees of rehabilitation are so rare in the bankrupt court 
of Paris that seldom more than one is granted in ten 
years. 

To those persons who take society in its serious as- 
pects, the paraphernalia of justice has a grand and sol- 
emn character difficult perhaps to define. Institutiop? 
depend altogether on the feelings with which men view 
them and the degree of grandeur which men’s thoughts 


CSsar Birotteau, 


891 


attach to them. When there is no longer, we will not 
say religion, but belief among the people, whenever 
early education has loosened all conservative bonds by 
accustoming youth to the practice of pitiless analysis, a 
nation will be found in process of dissolution ; for it will 
then be held together only by the base solder of mate- 
rial interests, and by the formulas of a creed created 
by intelligent egotism. 

Bred in religious ideas, Birotteau held justice to be 
what it ought to be in the eyes of men, — a representation 
of society itself, an august utterance of the will of all, 
apart from the particular form by which it is expressed. 
The older, feebler, grayer was the magistrate, the more 
solemn seemed the exercise of his function, — a func- 
tion which demands profound study of men and things, 
which subdues the heart and hardens it against the 
influence of eager interests. It is a rare thing nowa- 
days to find men who mount the stairway of the old 
Palais de Justice in the grasp of keen emotions. Cesar 
Birotteau was one of those men. 

Few persons have noticed the majestic solemnity of 
that stairway, admirably placed as it is to produce a sol- 
emn effect. It rises, beyond the outer peristyle which 
adorns the courtyard of the Palais, from the centre of 
a gallery leading, at one end, to the vast hall of the 
Pas Perdus, and at the other to the Sainte-Chapelle, — 
two architectural monuments which make all buildings 
in their neighborhood seem paltry. The church of 
Saint-Louis is among the most imposing edifices in 
Paris, and the approach to it through this long gallery 
is at once sombre and romantic. The great hall of the 
Pas Perdus, on the contrary, presents at the other end 


392 


CSmr Birotteau, 


of the gallery a broad space of light ; it is impossible 
to forget that the history of France is linked to those 
walls. The stairway should therefore be imposing in 
character ; and, in point of fact, it is neither dwarfed 
nor crushed by the architectural splendors on either 
side of it. Possibly the mind is sobered by a glimpse, 
caught through the rich gratings, of the Place du Palais 
de-Justice, where so many sentences have been executed. 
The staircase opens above into an enormous space, or 
antechamber, leading to the hall where the Court holds 
its public sittings. 

Imagine the emotions with which the bankrupt, sus- 
ceptible by nature to the awe of such accessories, went 
up that stairway to the hall of judgment, surrounded 
by his nearest friends, — Lebas, president of the Court 
of Commerce, Camusot his former judge, Ragon, and 
Monsieur TAbbe Loraux his confessor. The pious 
priest made the splendors of human justice stand forth 
in strong relief by reflections which gave them stiU 
greater solemnity in Cesar’s eyes. Pillerault, the prac- 
tical philosopher, fearing the danger of unexpected 
events on the worn mind of his nephew, had schemed 
to prepare him by degrees for the joys of this festal day. 
Just as C^sar flnished dressing, a number of his faithful 
friends arrived, all eager for the honor of accompanying 
him to the bar of the Court. The presence of this 
retinue roused the honest man to an elation which gave 
him strength to meet the imposing spectacle in the halls 
of justice. Birotteau found more friends awaiting him 
in the solemn audience chamber, where about a dozen 
members of the council were in session. 

After the cases were called over, Birotteau’s attorney 


Ci%ar Birotteau, 


393 


made his demand for reinstatement in the usual terms. 
On a sign from the presiding judge, the procureur- 
g^neral rose. In the name of his office this public 
prosecutor, the representative of public vindictiveness, 
asked that honor might be restored to the merchant 
who had never really lost it, — a solitary instance of 
such an appeal ; for a condemned man can onty be par- 
doned. Men of honor alone can imagine the emotions 
of Cesar Birotteau as he heard Monsieur de Grand- 
ville pronounce a speech, of which the following is an 
abridgment : — 

“Gentlemen,” said that celebrated official, “on the 16th 
of January, 1820, Birotteau was declared a bankrupt by the 
commercial tribunal of the Seine. His failure was not 
caused by imprudence, nor by rash speculations, nor by 
any act that stained his honor. We desire to say publicly 
that this failure was the result of a disaster which has again 
and again occurred, to the detriment of justice and the great 
injury of the city of Paris. It has been reserved for our 
generation, in which the bitter leaven of republican principles 
and manners will long be felt, to behold the notariat of Paris 
abandoning the glorious traditions of preceding centuries, and 
producing in a few years as many failures as two centuries 
of the old monarchy had produced. The thirst for gold 
rapidly acquired has beset even these officers of trust, these 
guardians of the public wealth, these mediators between the 
law and the people I ” 

On this text followed an allocution, in which the 
Comte de Grandville, obedient to the necessities of his 
role, contrived to incriminate the Liberals, the Bona- 
partists, and all other enemies of the throne. Subse- 
quent events have proved that he had reason for his 
apprehensions. 


B94 


CSsar BirotUau, 


“The flight of a notary of Paris who carried off the 
funds which Birotteau had deposited in his hands, caused 
the fall of your petitioner,” he resumed. “The Court ren- 
dered in that matter a decree which showed to what extent 
the confidence of Roguin’s clients had been betrayed. A 
concordat was held. For the honor of your petitioner, we 
call attention to the fact that his proceedings were remark- 
able for a purity not found in any of the scandalous failures 
which daily degrade the commerce of Paris. The creditors 
of Birotteau received the whole property, down to the smallest 
articles that the unfortunate man possessed. They received, 
gentlemen, his clothes, his jewels, things of purely personal 
use, — and not only his, but those of his wife, who abandoned 
all her rights to swell the total of his assets. Under these 
circumstances Birotteau showed himself worthy of the respect 
which his municipal functions had already acquired for him; 
for he was at the time a deputy-mayor of the second arron- 
dissement and had just received the decoration of the Legion 
of honor, granted as much for his devotion to the royal 
cause in Vendemiaire, on the steps of Saint-Roch, which 
were stained with his blood, as for his conciliating spirit, his 
estimable qualities as a magistrate, and the modesty with 
which he declined the honors of the mayoralty, pointing 
out one more worthy of them, the Baron de la Billardiere, 
one of those noble Vendeens whom he had learned to value 
in the dark days.” 

“ That phrase is better than mine,” whispered Cesar 
to Pillerault. 

“At that time the creditors, who received sixty per cent 
of their claims through the aforesaid relinquishment on the 
part of this loyal merchant, his wife, and his daughter of all 
that they possessed, recorded their respect for their debtor in 
the certificate of bankruptcy granted at the concordat which 
then took place, giving him at the same time a release from 


CSsar Birotteau, 


395 


the remainder of their claims. This testimonial is couched in 
terms which are worthy of the attention of the Court.** 

Here the procureur-general read the passage from 
the certificate of bankruptc}’. 

“ After receiving such expressions of good-will, gentle- 
men, most merchants would have considered themselves 
released from obligation and free to return boldly into the 
vortex of business. Far from so doing, Birotteau, without 
allowing himself to be cast down, resolved within his con- 
science to toil for the glorious day which has at length 
dawned for him here. Nothing disheartened him. Our 
beloved sovereign granted to the man who shed his blood 
on the steps of Saint-Roch an office where he might earn 
his bread. The salary of that office the bankrupt laid by for 
his creditors, taking nothing for his own wants; for family 
devotion has supported him.” 

Birotteau pressed his uncle’s hand, weeping. 

“ His wife and his daughter poured their earnings into 
the common fund, for they too espoused the noble hope 
of Birotteau. Each came down from the position she had 
held and took an inferior one. These sacrifices, gentlemen, 
should be held in honor, for they are harder than all others 
to bear. I will now show you what sort of task it was that 
Birotteau imposed upon himself.” 

Here the procureur-general read a summing-up of the 
schedule, giving the amounts which had remained unpaid 
and the names of the creditors. 

“ Each of these sums, with the interest thereon, has been 
paid, gentlemen; and. the payment is not shown by receipts 
under private seal, which might be questioned: they are pay- 
ments made before a notary, properly authenticated ; and ac- 
cording to the inflexible requirements of this Court they have 


396 


CSsar Birotteau, 


been examined and verified by the proper authority. We 
now ask you to restore Birotteau, not to honor, but to all 
the rights of which he was deprived. In doing this you are 
doing justice. Such exhibitions of character are so rare in 
this Court that we cannot refrain from testifying to the 
petitioner how heartily we applaud his conduct, which an 
august approval has akeady privately encouraged.” 

The prosecuting oflficer closed by reading his charge 
in the customary formal terms. 

The Court deliberated without retiring, and the presi- 
dent rose to pronounce judgment. 

“ The Court,” he said, in closing, “ desires me to express 
to Birotteau the satisfaction with which it renders such a 
judgment. Clerk, call the next case.” 

Birotteau, clothed with the caftan of honor which the 
speech of the illustrious procureur-general had cast 
about him, stood dumb with jo^" as he listened to the 
solemn words of the president, w'hich betrayed the quiv- 
erings of a heart beneath the impassibility of human 
justice. He was unable to stir from his place before 
the bar, and seemed for a moment nailed there, gazing 
at the judges with a wondering air, as though they were 
angels opening to him the gates of social life. His uncle 
took him by the arm and led him from the hall. Cesar 
had not as yet obeyed the command of Louis XVIII., 
but he now mechanically fastened the ribbon of the 
Legion of honor to his button-hole. In a moment he 
was surrounded by his friends and borne in triumph 
down the great stairway to his coach. 

“ Where are you taking me, my friends?” he said to 
Joseph Lebas, Pillerault, and Ragon. 

“ To your own home.” 


(Jimr Birotteau, 897 

“ No ; it is only three o’clock. I wish to go to the 
Bourse, and use my rights.” 

“To the Bourse!” said Pillerault to the coachman, 
making an expressive sign to Joseph Lebas, for he saw 
symptoms in Cesar which led him to fear he might lose 
his mind. 

The late perfumer re-entered the Bourse leaning on 
the arms of the two honored merchants, his uncle and 
Joseph Lebas. The news of his rehabilitation had pre- 
ceded him. The first person who saw them enter, fol- 
lowed b^^ Ragon, was du Tillet. 

“ Ah! my dear master,” he cried, “ I am delighted 
that you have pulled through. I have perhaps contrib- 
uted to this happ3^ ending of your troubles by letting 
that little Popinot drag a feather from my wing. I 
am as glad of your happiness as if it were my own.” 

“ You could not be otherwise,” said Pillerault. 
“ Such a thing can never happen to you.” 

“ What do you mean by that? ” said du Tillet. 

“ Oh ! all in good part,” said Lebas, smiling at the 
malicious meaning of Pillerault, who, without knowing 
the real truth, considered the man a scoundrel. 

Matifat caught sight of Cesar, and immediately the 
most noted merchants surrounded him and gave him 
an ovation hoursiere. He was overwhelmed with fiat- 
tering compliments and grasped by the hand, which 
roused some jealousy and caused some remorse ; for 
out of every hundred persons walking about that hall 
fifty at least had “liquidated” their affairs. Gigon- 
net and Gobseck, who were talking together in a cor- 
ner, looked at the man of commercial honor very much 
as a naturalist must have looked at the first electric-eel 


898 


CSsar Birotteau. 


that was ever brought to him, — a fish armed with the 
power of a Leyden jar, which is the greatest curiosity 
of the animal kingdom. After inhaling the incense of 
his triumph, Cesar got into the coach to go to his own 
home, where the marriage contract of his dear Cesarine 
and the devoted Popinot was ready for signature. His 
nervous laugh disturbed the minds of the three old 
friends. 

It is a fault of youth to think the whole world vigor- 
ous with its own vigor, — a fault derived from its virtues. 
Youth sees neither men nor things through spectacles ; 
it colors all with the reflex glory of its ardent fires, and 
casts the superabundance of its own life upon the aged. 
Like Cesar and like Constance, Popinot held in his 
memory a glowing recollection of the famous ball. 
Constance and Cesar through their years of trial had 
often, though they never spoke of it to each other, 
heard the strains of Collinet’s orchestra, often beheld 
that festive company, and tasted the joys so swiftly and 
so cruelly chastised, — as Adam and Eve must have 
tasted in after times the forbidden fruit which gave 
both death and life to all poster! t}" ; for it appears that 
the generation of angels is a m3^stery of the skies. 

Popinot, however, could dream of the fete without 
remorse, na}r, with ecstas3\ Had not Cesarine in all 
her glor\" then promised herself to him — to him, poor? 
During that evening had he not won the assurance that 
he was loved for himself alone ? So when he bought the 
appartement restored by Grindot, for Celestin, when 
he stipulated that all should be kept intact, when he 
religiously preserved the smallest things that once be- 
longed to Cesar and to Constance, he was dreaming of 


CSsar Birotteau. 


399 


another ball, — his ball, his wedding-ball ! He made 
loving preparation for it, imitating his old master in 
necessar}^ expenses, but eschewing all follies, — follies 
that were now past and done with. So the dinner was 
to be served by Chevet ; the guests were to be mostly 
the same : the Abbe Loraux replaced the chancellor 
of the Legion of honor ; the president of the Court of 
Commerce, Monsieur Lebas, had promised to be there ; 
Popinot invited Monsieur Camusot in acknowledgment 
of the kindness he had bestowed upon Birotteau ; Mon- 
sieur de Vandenesse and Monsieur de Fontaine took 
the place of Roguin and his wife. C^sarine and Popi- 
not distributed their invitations with much discretion. 
Both dreaded the publicity of a wedding, and they 
escaped the jar such scenes must cause to pure and 
tender hearts by giving the ball on the evening of the 
day appointed for signing the marriage-contract. 

Constance found in her room the gown of cherry 
velvet in which she had shone for a single night with 
fleeting splendor. Cesarine cherished a dream of ap- 
pearing before Popinot in the identical ball-dress about 
which, time and time again, he had talked to her. The 
appartement was made ready to present to Cesar’s eyes 
the same enchanting scene he had once enjoyed for a 
single evening. Neither Constance, nor Cesarine, nor 
Popinot perceived the danger to Cesar in this sudden 
and overwhelming surprise, and they awaited his arrival 
at four o’clock with a delight that was almost childish. 

Following close upon the unspeakable emotion his 
re-entrance at the Bourse had caused him, the hero of 
commercial honor was now to meet the sudden shock 
of felicity that awaited him in his old home. He 


400 


CSsar Birotteau, 


entered the house, and saw at the foot of the staircase 
(still new as he had left it) his wife in her velvet robe, 
Cesarine, the Comte de Fontaine, the Vicomte de Vande- 
nesse, the Baron de la Billardiere, the illustrious Vau- 
quelin. A light film dimmed his eyes, and his uncle 
Pillerault, who held his arm, felt him shudder inwardly. 

“ It is too much,” said the philosopher to the happy 
lover ; “ he can never carry all the wine you are pouring 
out to him.” 

Joy was so vivid in their hearts that each attributed 
Cesar’s emotion and his stumbling step to the natural 
intoxication of his feelings, — natural, but sometimes 
mortal. When he found himself once more in his own 
home, when he saw his salon, his guests, the women in 
their ball-dresses, suddenly the heroic measure in the 
finale of the great symphony rang forth in his head 
and heart. Beethoven’s ideal music echoed, vibrated, 
in many tones, sounding its clarions through the mem- 
branes of the weary brain, of which it was indeed the 
grand finale. 

Oppressed with this inward harmony, C^sar took the 
arm of his wife and whispered, in a voice suffocated by 
a rush of blood that was still repressed: “ I am not 
well.” 

Constance, alarmed, led him to her bedroom ; he 
reached it with difficulty, and fell into a chair, saying : 
“ Monsieur Haudry , Monsieur Loraux.” 

The Abbe Loraux came, followed by the guests and 
the women in their ball-dresses, who stopped short, a 
frightened group. In presence of that shining company 
Cesar pressed the hand of his confessor and laid his 
head upon the bosom of his kneeling wife. A vessel 


CSsar Birotteau, 


401 


had broken in his breast, and the rush of blood strangled 
his last sigh. 

“ Behold the death of the righteous ! ’* said the Abb^ 
Loraux solemnly, pointing to Cesar with the divine ges- 
ture which Rembrandt gave to Christ in his picture of 
the Raising of Lazarus. 

Jesus commanded the earth to give up its prey ; the 
priest called heaven to behold a martyr of commercial 
honor worthy to receive the everlasting palm. 


NUCINGEN AND CO.: BANKERS. 


/ 


To Madame Zulma Carraud. 

Surely it is to you, madame, whose lofty and upright mind 
is like r treasure-house to your friends, to you who have been 
to me the whole public, and also the most indulgent of 
sisters, that I ought to dedicate this work. Deign to accept 
it as testimony to a friendship of which I am proud indeed. 
You, and other souls noble as your own, will understand my 
thought as you read this sketch of banking circles following 
the History of Cesar Birotteau. Is there not in that con- 
trast a complete social lesson? 

De Balzac. 


NUCINGEN AND CO.: BANKERS. 


The World of Leading Bankers. 

You know how thin are the partitions which separate 
the private dining-rooms of the elegant restaurants of 
Paris. At Very’s, for instance, the largest salon ic 
divided in two by a partition which is removable at 
will. The scene I am about to relate did not, however, 
take place there but in another excellent establishment 
which it suits me not to name. We were two, and like 
the Prud’homme of Henri Monnier, “ I prefer not to 
compromise her.” 

We were playing with the delicacies of an exquisite 
little dinner — exquisite in more senses than one — in 
a little salon where we spoke in low tones, having 
recognized the extreme thinness of the partitions. Our 
roast had come and gone before we had any neighbors 
in the adjoining room, where we heard only the 
crackling of the fire. Eight o’clock was striking 
when a great noise of feet arrived, remarks were ex- 


408 Nucingen and Co. : Bankers. 

changed, and the waiters brought in lights. It was 
plain that the salon next to ours was occupied. Re- 
cognizing the voices, I knew the sort of personages 
with whom we had to do. 

They were four of the boldest cormorants floating on . 
the foamy crests of the ever-changing waves of our 
present generation; amiable fellows in their way, 
whose existence is a problem, who are not known to 
possess a penny or a bit of land, but who live well. 
These clever condottieri of modern industry (which has 
become the most cruel of wars) leave anxieties to their 
creditors, keep pleasures for themselves, and have 
no care but that of dressing well. Brave enough to 
smoke, like Jean Bart, on a powder-keg — perhaps to 
keep up their r61e — more sarcastic than the petits 
journaux^ so sarcastic as to scoff at themselves ; keen- 
sighted, disbelieving, grasping and prodigal, priers 
into all affairs, envious- of others but content with them- 
selves, profound politicians by fits and starts, analyzing 
all things, divining all things, they had not yet been 
able to force themselves to the light in the social world 
to which they aspired. Only one among the four had 
his foot on the ladder — at its lowest rung. This man, 
named Andoche Finot, little of a talker, cold, fond of 
good eating, and devoid of mind, had the heart to lay 
himself flat on his stomach before those who could 
serve him, and the shrewdness to be insolent to those 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers. 


409 


whom he did not need. Like one of the clowns in 
the ballet of “ Gustave,” he is marquis behind and 
serf in front. 

This industrial prelate keeps a train-bearer, Emile 
Blondet, a newspaper writer, a man of mental capacity, 
but loose-ended, brilliant, capable, lazy, knowing the 
use made of him and letting himself be used, as 
treacherous as he is kindly out of sheer caprice, a 
man whom all like and none esteem. Emile is the 
most attractive of those girl-men of whom a fantastic 
genius of our day has said : “I should like them better 
in satin shoes than boots.” 

The third, named Couture, supports himself by 
speculating. He grafts one scheme on another 
scheme ; the success of one covers the failure of the 
other. Thus he manages to keep his head above 
water, sustained by the nervous force of his play and 
the audacious rapidity with which he throws the dice. 
He swims hither and thither, seeking in the vast sea of 
Parisian self-interests for some islet on which to get a 
foothold. Evidently he has not yet found it. 

As for the last, and the most malicious of the four, 
his name suffices : Bixiou ! Alas ! he is no longer the 
Bixiou of 1825, but he of 1836 — the misanthropic 
jester noted for his dashing sarcasm; a devil of a 
fellow maddened by the thought of having spent so 
much wit to pure waste, furious at not having picked 


410 Nucingen and Co. : Bankers. 

up his chance in the last revolution, kicking every one 
right and left like a true Pierrot of the Funambules, 
knowing his epoch and its scandalous adventures to 
his fingers* ends and adding diabolical decorations to 
them, jumping on all shoulders like a clown and trying 
to leave a mark as red as the brand of the galleys. 

After satisfying the first demands of the stomach, 
our neighbors attained to the period of dinner at 
which we still remained, namely, the dessert, and 
thanks to our quiet behavior they thought themselves 
alone ; consequently amid the smoke of cigars and by 
the help of champagne and the gastronomic amuse- 
ments of dessert, a free and easy conversation soon 
began. Stamped by that icy spirit which congeals the 
most expansive feelings, cuts short all generous inspi- 
rations, and gives to laughter itself a certain sharp- 
ness, this talk, full of the acrid irony that turns gayety 
to sneers, will serve to show the exhaustion of souls 
given over to themselves, without other object than the 
satisfaction of egotism — the fruit of the peace in 
which we live. The pamphlet against mankind which 
Diderot dared not publish, “ The Nephew of Rameau,’* 
intentionally plain-spoken in its exposures in order to 
exhibit sores, is alone comparable to the conversation 
that follows, in which the witty word spared not even 
that which the thinker was still discussing ; where all 
was destruction and denial and nothing was raised 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 411 

upon the ruins, and no admiration was felt but for 
that which scepticism recognizes, namely, the omnipo- 
tence, the omniscience, and the omni-convenience of 
money. After firing for a while broadcast through the 
ranks of society, malignancy began to shoot down 
intimate friends ; and I confess I felt a desire to listen 
when Bixiou assumed the leading part. We then heard 
one of those terrible improvisations to which that 
artist owes his reputation with certain biased minds. 
Though often, as we shall see, interrupted, renewed 
and dropped and renewed again, it remains indelibly 
impressed upon my memory. Opinions and form, all 
is outside of accepted literary canons. But it is given 
here such as it was; a pot-pourri of sinister things 
which depicts our epoch, to which such histories 
should be told, but the responsibility for which I now 
leave to the chief narrator. The pantomime and ges- 
tures, judging by the frequent changes of voice, by 
which Bixiou indicated the various interlocutors he put 
upon the scene, must have been well-nigh perfect, for 
his three hearers gave vent to approving exclamations, 
together with interjections of extreme satisfaction. 

“And Rastignac refused you?” said Blondet to 
Finot. 

“ Point-blank.” 

“Didn’t you threaten him with the newspapers?” 

“ He laughed at that,” replied Finot. 


412 Nucingen and Co. : BanJcers, 

“ Rastignac is heir in direct descent of the late de 
Marsay ; he ’ll make his way in politics as he has in 
society,” said Blondet. 

“ But how did he make his fortune? ” asked Couture. 
“ In 1819 he lived with the illustrious Bianchon in a 
wretched pension in the Latin quarter. His family ate 
fried cock-chafers, and drank the lees of the cask to be 
able to send him a hundred francs a month. His 
father’s property was n’t worth three thousand francs a 
year ; he had two sisters and a brother on his shoul- 
ders, and now — ’’ 

“Now, he has forty thousand francs a year,” said 
Rinot, “ his two sisters have been well-dowered and 
married to noblemen, and he has given a life-interest 
in his father’s estate to his mother.” 

“ In 1827,” said Blondet, “ he still had n’t a penny.” 

“ Oh ! 1827 ! ” exclaimed Bixiou. 

“ And now,” continued Finot, “ we see him on the 
high-road to be a cabinet minister, peer of France, and 
anything else he wants to be ! It is three years since 
he ended off suitably with Delphine ; he won’t marry 
without good security, and he is likely to get some girl 
of rank — he ! The fellow had excellent good sense 
to attach a rich woman to him early in life.” 

“ My friends, give him credit for extenuating cir- 
cumstances,” said Blondet, “ he fell into the paws of 
a clever man in escaping the claws of poverty.” 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers. 413 

“ You know Nucingen well,” said Bixiou. In the 
early days Delphine and Rastignac found him kind; a 
wife seemed to be, for him, a jewel, a decoration of 
his house. To my mind, that makes him as solidly 
broad at the base as he is high. Nucingen has made 
no bones of saying that his wife is the representative 
of his wealth ; a thing indispensable, but secondary in 
the lives of statesmen and financiers. He has said 
before me that Bonaparte was as stupid as a bour- 
geois in his first relations to Josephine, and that having 
had the courage to use her as a stepping-stone he was 
ridiculous in trying to make a companion of her.” 

“All superior men ought to cultivate the ideas of 
the East as to women,” said Blondet. 

“ The banker jumbled Eastern and Western ideas 
into one delightful Parisian doctrine. He had a horror 
of de Marsay as not manageable, but Rastignac pleased 
him much, and he used him so cleverly that Rastignac 
never suspected it. Nucingen put all the burdens of 
his household on him. Eugene shouldered Delphine’s 
caprices; he drove her to the Bois, he accompanied 
her to the theatre. The great little statesman of to-day 
spent several years of his life in reading and writing 
pretty notes. He was scolded for nothings; he was 
lively with Delphine when she was gay, and sad when 
she was dull ; he bore the burden of her headaches and 
her confidences ; he gave up ail his life, his hours, his 


414 Nucingen and Co. : Banlcers. 

precious youth to fill the void of the idleness of that 
woman. Delphine and he used to hold high counsel on 
which set of jewels or wreaths of flowers suited her 
best; he drew the fire of all her tantrums and the 
broadside of her sulks, while, by way of compensation, 
she was charming to the banker. Nucingen laughed 
in his sleeve; but if he saw Rastignac giving way 
under the weight of these burdens he would instantly 
appear to ‘ suspect something,* and so reunite the pair 
by a mutual fear.” 

“I can understand that a rich woman should have 
enabled Rastignac to live and live well, but how did he 
get property?*’ asked Couture. “A fortune as con- 
siderable as the one he now possesses must have been 
acquired somehow, and no one has ever accused him of 
doing a sharp stroke of business.” 

“ He inherited,” remarked Finot. 

“ From whom ? ” asked Blondet. 

“ Fools, whom he encountered,” returned Couture. 

“No, he did n’t get it all in that way, my good 
friends,” said Bixiou. “1*11 tell you now the origin 
of his fortune. In the first place, homage to talent I 
Our friend is not a ‘ fellow * as Finot called him, but a 
gentlemar who can play his game and knows his cards, 
a man whom the gallery respects. Rastignac has all 
the talent that he needs at a given moment, like a s61- 
dier who invests his courage only at ninety days* sight, 


Nucingen and Co» i Bankers, 


415 


three signatures and securities. He seems overbear- 
ing, unreasonable, without connected ideas, without 
steadiness of purpose, without fixed opinions ; but, let 
some serious affair arise, some scheme to be managed, 
and Rastignac won’t scatter himself, like Blondet here ! 
who ’ll argue the other side for the benefit of his neigh- 
bor: no, Rastignac gathers himself up, concentrates 
his forces, studies the point on which he ought to 
charge and does charge on the double-quick. With 
Murat’s valor he breaks the enemy’s square, and down 
go stockholders, bondholders, and all the rest of the 
concern. Then, having made his opening, he retires into 
his easy-going careless life, he becomes once more the 
Southerner, the voluptuary, the idle talker, the lazy 
Rastignac, who can afford to get up at midday because 
he did n’t go to bed till the crisis was over.” 

“That’s all very well, but get to his fortune,” put 
in Finot. 

“ Bixiou will make a joke of it,” said Blondet ; ’ll 
tell you; Eugene’s fortune is — Delphine de Nucingen, 
a remarkable woman who unites audacity to foresight.” 

“Did she ever lend you money?” asked Bixiou. 

The laugh was general at this. 

“You are very much mistaken about her,” said 
Couture to Blondet, “ her cleverness consists in mak- 
ing speeches that are more or less piquant, in loving 
Rastignac with embarrassing fidelity, and in obeying 
him blindly — she ’s an Italian sort of woman.” 


416 Nucingen and Co. : Banlcers, 

“ Plus money,” said Finot sourly. 

“ Come, come,” resumed Bixiou in a persuasive tone. 
“ after what we have been saying why find fault with 
that poor Rastignac for living at the expense of the 
house of Nucingen, and being ‘ put in his furniture,’ as 
the saying is, neither more nor less than La Torpille 
by our friend des Lupeaulx? — you are falling into the 
vulgarity of the rue Saint-Denis. In the first place, 
speaking in the abstract, as Royer-Collard says, the 
question can bear the examination of pure reason ; as 
for impure reason — ” 

“ There he goes ! ” said Finot to Blondet. 

“He’s right,” cried Blondet. “ The question is a 
very old one ; it caused the famous duel between La 
Chataigneraie and Jarnac which gave a saying to France. 
Jarnac was accused of being on good terms with his 
mother-in-law, who supplied the luxuries of her be- 
loved son. When a fact is true, it ought never to be 
told. By way of devotion to King Henri II., who 
allowed himself to repeat this gossip. La Chataigneraie 
took that royal indiscretion ou himself. Hence the 
duel, which has enriched the French language with the 
saying : Coup de Jarnac.” 

“ Ah ! if that saying has such a long descent it must 
be noble ! ” said Finot. 

“ No wonder you were ignorant of it in your former 
capacity as editor of reviews and newspapers,” said 
Blondet. 


Nucingen and Co, : Bankers, 


417 


“ There are women,” continued Bixiou gravely, 
“ and also there are men who are able to divide their 
lives and give out but one part of them (observe that 
I phrase my opinion according to the humanitarian 
formula). To such persons all material interests are 
external to sentiment. They give their lives, their 
time, their honor to a woman, and think it is not be- 
coming to confuse the matter with material questions. 
Reciprocally, these men accept nothing from a woman. 
Yes, all becomes dishonorable if there ’s any question 
of interests as well as of souls. This doctrine is much 
professed, but it is n’t often applied.” 

“Ho!” said Blondet, “what nonsense! The 
Marechal de Richelieu, who understood gallantry pretty 
well, gave Madame de la Popeliniere a pension of 
twenty thousand francs the day after the affair of the 
chimney-back. Agnes Sorel carried her whole fortune 
artlessly to Charles VII., and the king took it. 
Jacques Coeur preserved the crown of France, which 
allowed him to do so and was afterwards as ungrateful 
as a woman.” 

“ Messieurs,” said Bixiou, “ all love which does 
not involve indissoluble friendship seems to m mere 
passing licentiousness. What is entire self-abandon- 
ment if you keep back anything? Between the two 
doctrines, equally opposed and equally immoral the 

one as the other, there is no agreement possible. In 

27 


418 Nucingen and Oo, : Banlcers, 

my opinion, those persons who fear a perfect and 
complete bond expect it to come to an end, and if so, 
adieu illusion ! A love which does not consider itself 
eternal is hideous (that ’s pure Fenelon). Now, persons 
to whom the world is known, observers, well-bred, well- 
gloved and well-cravatted men, who think it no shame 
to marry a woman for her money, proclaim, as indis- 
pensable, a total severing of self-interests and senti- 
ments. The rest are fools who love and who think 
themselves alone in the world with their mistresses. 
To them, millions are mud ; the glove, the camellia, 
worn by the idol are worth many millions. Though 
you will not find in their possession any of the 
squandered filthy lucre, you ’ll find faded flowers care- 
fully put away in cedar boxes. Such lovers are one ; 
for them there ’s no I. Thou is their incarnate Word. 
What of it? Would you try to cure this folly of the 
heart? There are fools who love without any calcu- 
lation; there are wise men who calculate in lovinsr.” 

“Bixiouis sublime,” cried Blondet. “What say 
you, Finot?” 

“ Elsewhere,” replied Finot, settling down in his 
cravat, “ I should say what gentlemen say ; but here I 
think — ” 

“ Like the rascally scamps with whom you have the 
honor of dining,” interposed Bixiou. 

“ Faith, yes,” returned Finot. 


Nucingen and Co, : Banker 9. 419 

And you ? ” said Bixiou to Couture. 

“ All rubbish,” cried Couture, “ the woman who 
is n’t williug to make herself a stepping-stone for the 
man she loves to rise by is a woman who has no heart 
except for herself.” 

“ And you, Blondet? ” 

“I — oh! I practise, I don’t argue.” 

“ Well! ” resumed Bixiou in his most sarcastic voice. 
“ Rastignac did not agree with you. To take all 
and render nothing is horrid and even scandalous 5 
but to take like the lord in the Bible and return a 
hundredfold, is a chivalrous thing to do. So thought 
Rastignac. Rastignac was profoundly humiliated by 
his community of interests with Delphine de Nucingen. 
I can speak of his regrets, for I have seen him with 
tears in his eyes (after supper, of course) deploring 
his position. Yes, he really w^ept I Well, now, accord- 
ing to you — ” 

“Look here! are you making fun of us?” asked 
Finot. 

“Not the least in the world. I’m talking of 
Rastignac, whose grief, according to you, was a 
proof of his corruption, for by that time he cared 
much less for Delphine. But so it was; the poor 
fellow had that thorn in his heart. You see, he ’s a 
profoundly depraved nobleman while we are virtuous 
artists. So Rastignac wanted to enrich Delphine, ho 


420 Nucingen and Co. : BanJcers. 

poor, she rich! and — will you believe it? — he 
succeeded. Rastignac, who would have fought like 
Jarnac, went over to the opinion of Henri II. as eX' 
pressed in that great saying of his : ‘ There is no 
absolute virtue ; only circumstances.’ All this belongs 
to the history of his fortune.” 

“ You had better begin your tale instead of induc- 
ing us to calumniate ourselves, ’ said Blondet, with 
gracious good-humor. 

“Ha! ha! my boy,” said Bixiou, baptizing him 
with a tap on the skull, “the champagne is beginning 
to work.” 

“ By the sacred name of Stockholder, I conjure 
you, relate your tale!” said Couture. 

“ I was just within a peg of it,” retorted Bixiou, “ but 
that oath of yours puts me at the end of it.” 

“ Are there stockholders in the story? asked Finot. 

“ Yes, and as rich as yours,'' replied Bixiou. 

“It seems to me,” said Finot in a sulky tone, 
“ that you owe some consideration to a good fellow 
who lends you on occasion five hundred francs — ” 

“ Waiter ! ” cried Bixiou. 

“ What do you want of the waiter? ” asked Blondet. 

“Five hundred francs to return them to Finot, to 
free my tongue and tear up my note of hand.” 

“ Tell your tale,” said Finot, affecting to laugh. * 

“I take you all to witness,” said Bixiou, “ that I 


Nucingen and Co.: Bankers, 421 

don’t belong to that impertinent fellow who thinks my 
silence is worth only five hundred francs. You’ll 
never be minister if you don’t learn to gauge con- 
sciences — Well, yes! my old Finot,” he added in a 
coaxing tone, “ I’ll tell the story without any per- 
sonalities, and we ’ll call ^t quits.” 

“ He is going to prove to us,” said Couture, laughing, 
“ that Nucingen made Rastignac’s fortune.” 

“You are not so far wrong as you think,” returned 
Bixiou. “ You don’t know what Nucingen is, finan- 
cially speaking.” 

“ And you don’t know yourself one word about his 
beginnings,” said Blondet. 

“ I have only known him in his own house,” said 
Bixiou, “ but we may have known each other as high- 
waymen in former worlds.” 

“The prosperity of the banking-house of Nucingen 
is one of the extraordinary phenomena of our times,” 
continued Blondet. “ In 1804, Nucingen was little 
known; the bankers of those days would have trem- 
bled to find three hundred thousand franca of his 
acceptances on the market. This grand financier was 
fully aware of his inferiority. How could he make 
himself known? He suspended payment. Good! 
His name, hitherto confined to Strasburg and the fau- 
bourg Poissoni^re, echoed through the markets. He 
bought out the interests of his clients with depreciated 


422 


Nucingen and Co. : Banhers, 

securities and resumed payment; his paper was taken 
at once throughout all France. By rare good luck the 
depreciated property revived and became profitable. 
Nucingen was at once in demand. The year 1815 
came; the fellow gathered in his capital, bought into 
the Funds before the battle of Waterloo, suspended 
payment at the moment of the crisis, liquidated his 
debts with stock of the mines of Wortschin which he 
had bought at twenty per cent below the value at 
which he now issued them. Yes, gentlemen, that is 
true. He took one hundred and fifty thousand bottles 
of champagne from old Grandet to cover himself, fore- 
seeing the failure of that virtuous father of the present 
Comte d’Aubrion, and as much more from Duberghe 
in Bordeaux wines. These three hundred thousand 
accepted bottles — accepted, my friends, at thirty sous 
— he made the Allies drink at six francs a bottle in 
the Palais Royal between 1817 and 1819. The paper 
of the house of Nucingen and its name became at once 
European. This illustrious baron rose on the very 
wave which engulfed others. Twice his liquidation 
has been of immense advantage to his creditors: at- 
tempt to cheat them? oh, impossible. He passes for 
the most honest financier in the world. At his third 
suspension the paper of the house of Nucingen will 
be taken in Asia, Mexico, Australia, among savages. 
Ouvrard is the only man who has fathomed this Alsa- 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers. 423 

cian, the son of some Jew converted by ambition. 
‘ When Nucingen lets go his gold/ said he, ‘ you may 
be sure he is grabbing diamonds. ’ ” 

“ His crony, du Tillet, is the same,” said Finot. “ In 
the matter of birth du Tillet has only that which was 
indispensable to existence, and yet he, who had n’t a 
farthing in 1814, has become what you now see him. 
And, moreover, he has made what none of us (I don’t 
speak of you, Couture) have been able to make, and 
that is friends instead of enemies. In fact he has so 
carefully concealed his antecedents, that it was neces- 
sary to grub in the gutter to find out that he was once a 
clerk with a perfumer in the rue Saint-Honore as late 
as 1814.” 

“ Ta, ta, ta ! ” cried Bixiou, “ don’t compare Nucin- 
gen to a villanous little swindler like du Tillet, a 
jackal who hunts by his nose, scents a dead body and 
gets there in time to snatch the biggest bone. Just 
look at the two men — one with the pointed face of a 
cat, thin, sinewy, made for springing; the other cubic, 
fat, heavy as a sack, immovable as a diplomatist. 
Nucingen has the lynx. eye that never glitters; his 
depths are not before him but behind him ; he is im- 
penetrable, you’ll never see him coming. Whereas 
du Tibet’s wiliness resembles, as Napoleon said of 
somebody, I forget who, thread spun so fine that it 
breaks.” 


424 Nucingen and Co.: Bankers, 

“ I can’t see that Nucingen has any other advantage 
over du Tillet than the good sense of knowing that a 
financier ought never to be more than a baron ; whereas 
du Tillet is trying to get himself made a count in 
Italy,” said Blondet. 

“ Blondet ! one word, my boy,” cried Couture. “ lo 
the first place Nucingen was bold enough to say that 
no man is honest except in appearance; and next, 
you can never know him unless you see him in busi- 
ness. Banking, with him, is only one department 
and a small one : he furnishes the government, he 
trades in wines, wools, indigo, in short in anything 
where he sees a chance of gain. His genius takes hold 
of all things. That elephant of finance would sell the 
deputies to the ministry, the Greeks to the Turks if he 
could. To him, commerce is, as Cousin would say, 
the totality of varieties, the unity of specialties. A 
banking business thus regarded becomes a great policy ; 
it requires a powerful head, and leads a man of nerve 
to put himself above the laws of probity by which he 
finds himself hampered.” 

“You are right, my son,” said Blondet. “But we 
outsiders can see that all that means war in the world 
of money. The banker is a conqueror who sacrifices 
great masses to reach some results ; his soldiers thus 
sacrificed are the interests of individuals. He has his 
stratagems to plan, his ambushes to set, his partisans 


Nucingen and Co. : BanherB. 425 

to send into the field and his cities to capture. Most 
of these men are so close to politics that they end by 
taking part in them and then their fortunes succumb. 
The firm of Necker came to grief in this way, and the 
famous Samuel Bernard was almost ruined. In every 
generation we find some banker of colossal fortune 
who leaves behind him neither fortune nor successor. 
The Brothers Paris, who contributed to pull down Law, 
and Law himself (beside whom all those who start asso- 
ciations with stocks are pygmies) Bouret, Baujon, all 
have disappeared and have left neither family nor 
representative behind them. Like Time, the bank 
devours its own children. In order to preserve him- 
self the banker should be ennobled, should found a 
dynasty, like those money-lenders to Charles V., the 
Fuggers, created Princes of Babenhausen, who still 
exist — in the almanac of Gotha. The bank does in 
fact seek nobility from the instinct of preservation, 
without perhaps really knowing it. Jacques Coeur 
made a great firm noble, that of Noirmoutier, which 
became extinct under Louis XIII. What energy there 
was in that man ! ruined for having made a legitimate 
king! He died a prince on an island of the Archi- 
pelago where he had erected a magnificent cathedral.” 

Ah ^a! you are going to give us a course of 
history, and take us out of the present day when the 
throne is deprived of the right of conferring nobiiitj 


426 Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 

and can only make barons behind closed doors — • 
more ’s the pity I ** said Finot. 

“ You regret the days when titles could be bought,” 
said Bixiou, “and right enough too. However, let us 
go back to our mutton. Do you know Beaudenord? 
No, no, no. Heavens, how all things pass! That 
poor lad was the flower of dandyism ten years ago. 
But he has been so sucked under that none of you 
know him any more than Finot knew the origin of the 
‘ coup de Jarnac.* (I did n’t say that to tease you, 
Finot.) Well, he belonged to the faubourg Saint- 
Germain. Beaudenord is the first person that I shall 
bring upon the scene. His name was Godefroid de 
Beaudenord. Neither Finot, nor Blondet, nor Couture, 
nor I, will deny the advantage of such a name. That 
fellow’s vanity never suffered at hearing his servants 
called up after a ball in presence of a score of pretty 
women in their hoods and mantles waiting for theii 
carriages. Also he was in full enjoyment of all the 
parts and members which God has bestowed upon 
man ; sound and whole, no specks on the eye, no false 
locks, no false calves, his knees did n’t knock in, nor 
his legs bow out ; spine bone straight, waist slim, hand 
white and well-shaped, black hair, complexion neither 
rosy like that of a grocer’s boy nor brown like that of 
a Calabrese peasant. And finally — a thing essential ! 
Beaudenord was not too handsome, like some of my 


Nucingen and Co, : Bankers, 427 

friends who look as if they made capital of their 
beauty because they have n’t any other — but we won’t 
go back to that subject ; we have said enough, and it 
is infamous. Beaudenord was a good shot, rode a 
horse well, fought a duel for a mere trifle and did not 
kill his adversary. Do you know that in order to un- 
derstand in what happiness, pure, unalloyed, unmixed 
happiness consists in the nineteenth century — and the 
happiness, mind you, of a young man of twenty-six — 
you must look at the infinitely small things of life. 
The bootmaker had caught the shape of Beaudenord’s 
foot and shod him well. The tailor liked to clothe 
him. Beaudenord neither lisped nor rolled his r’s, nor 
bragged, nor talked Norman; he spoke pure, correct 
French, and wore his cravat properly — like Finot 
there. Cousin by marriage to the Marquis d’Aiglemont, 
his guardian (he was orphaned of both father and mother, 
another cause of happiness), he could go, and did go 
into the banking set, without the faubourg Saint- 
Germain blaming him ; for, happily, a young man has 
the right to make pleasure his only law, to go where 
he gets amusement, and to fly the gloomy corners 
where dulness reigns. In short, he had been vaccin- 
ated (you understand me, Blondet?). But in spite of 
all these advantages he might have been very unhappy. 
Ha! ha! happiness has the misfortune to seem to 
signify something positive ; and this leads many a fool 


428 Nucingen and Co, : Banhers. 

to ask : ‘ What is happiness ? * A very clever woman 
once said : ‘ Happiness is where you put it.’ ” 

“ She told a sad truth,” said Blondet. 

“ And a moral one,” added Finot. 

“ Archi-moral ! Happiness, like Virtue, like Evil, 
expresses something relative,” said Blondet. “ Even 
La Fontaine hoped that in course of time the souls in 
hell would get accustomed to their position and end by 
living in a sea of flames like Ashes in water. The 
happiness of a man of twenty-six who lives in Paris 
is n’t that of a man of twenty-six who lives in Blois. 
Those who start from that fact to declaim against the 
instability of opinions are cheats or fools. The science 
of modern medicine, the greatest glory of which is to 
have passed between 1799 and 1837 from a state of 
conjecture to a state of positive knowledge (and that 
through the influence of the great analytical school of 
Paris) , has proved that within certain periods of time, 
man is completely renovated — ” 

““After the fashion of Jeannot’s knife, and you think 
him always the same,” put in Bixiou. “ So, then, there 
are patches of various colors in that harlequin’s-coat we 
call happiness ? However, that of my Godefroid had 
neither holes nor spots. A young man of twenty-six, 
happy in love — that is to say, who is loved, not for 
his flowery youth, nor for his wit or his mind, nor yet 
for his figure, but irresistibly, not even for love’s sake, 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers. 429 

7mt loved even where love is abstract (to quote the 
excellent Royer-Collard once more) the said young man 
can very well afford not to have a penny in the purse that 
the beloved object has knit for him, he can owe rent to 
his landlord, he needn’t pay his bootmaker or his 
tailor, who will end by hating him; in short, he can 
very well be poor! Poverty, I admit, spoils the 
happiness of a young man who does not have our 
transcendent views on the fusion of interests. I don’t 
know anything more wearing than to be morally very 
happy and materially very miserable. It is like having 
one leg frozen, as mine is just now by the draught 
from that door, and the other broiling in a furnace. I 
hope I make myself understood ; there ’s an echo to my 
words under your waistcoat pocket, Blondet ! Between 
ourselves it is best to get rid of hearts, they spoil minds. 
To continue : Godefroid de Beaudenord possessed, at 
the time I speak of, the respect of his tradesmen, and 
his tradesmen possessed his money with some regularity. 
The clever woman whom I have already quoted and 
whose name cannot be mentioned because, thanks to 
her want of heart, she still lives — ” 

“ Who is she? ” 

“The Marquise d’Espard. She said that a young 
man ought to live in an entresol, have nothing about him 
that resembles a home, — neither cook nor kitchen, 
nothing but an old man to wait on him, — and make 


430 Nucingen and Co. : Bankers. 

no pretensions to stability. According to her, every 
other sort of bachelor establishment is in bad taste. 
Godefroid de Beaudenord, faithful to that programme, 
lived on the quai Malaquais, in an entresol., where he 
had so little similitude with married people that he 
slept on a camp-bed almost too narrow to manage to 
stay upon it. An Englishwoman, entering by acci- 
dent, would have found nothing ‘ improper ’ there. 
Finot, get some one to explain to you the great law 
of the ‘ improper ’ which rules England. But stay, as 
you and I are now bound by the sacred tie of a thousand- 
franc note, I ’ll give you an idea of it myself. I ’ve 
been in England” (in a whisper to Blondet: “I’m 
going to give him knowledge worth two thousand 
francs”). “In England, Finot, you become quite 
intimate with a lady during the evening, at a ball or 
elsewhere; you meet her the next day in the street^ 
and you assume to recognize her — improper! You 
find at dinner, under the swallow-tail of your left-hand 
neighbor, a charming fellow, witty, no arrogance, free 
and easy, nothing of the Englishman about him. Ac- 
cording to the laws of French polite society, so affable, 
so friendly, you speak to him — improper! You ap- 
proach a pretty woman at a ball and ask her to dance : 
improper! You get excited, you talk, you laugh, you 
put your heart, your soul, your mind into the conv-er- 
sation ; you express sentiments ; you play when you hold 


Nudngen and Co. : Bankers, 431 

your cards, you talk when you talk, you eat when you 
eat, — all improper ! improper ! improper ! One of the 
wittiest and also one of the profoundest minds of 
this century, Stendhal, has admirably characterized 
the ‘ Improper ’ by stating that there is a lord in Great 
Britain who, when alone, dares not cross his legs before 
the fire for fear of being improper. An English lady, 
even if she belongs to the Sacred Army of Bigots 
(intolerant Protestants, who would let their daughters 
die of hunger if they were improper ) would not be 
improper herself in playing the devil in her own bedroom, 
but would think herself lost if she openly received a 
gentleman in it. Thanks to the Improper, we shall 
some day find London and its inhabitants petrified.” 

“ When one thinks of the ninnies in France who 
want to import the solemn stupidities which English- 
men perform with that fine imperturbability we are all 
aware of,” said Blondet, “it is enough to make one 
shudder. Walter Scott, in his last years, who dared 
not picture women as they are for fear of being 
thought improper., expressed regret for having drawn 
that beautiful figure of EflSe in the ‘ Heart of 
Midlothian.’ ” 

“ Do you want to make sure of not being improper in 
England ? ” said Bixiou to Finot. 

“ How? ” said Finot. 

“ Go to the Tuileries and look at a sort of fireman 


432 


Nucingen and Co. : B anker b. 


in marble, called Themistocles by the sculptor, and 
then try to walk like the Statue of the Commander, 
and you’ll never be improper. Well, it was through a 
vigorous application of the law of the Improper that 
Godefroid’s happiness was made complete. His tiger 
was a little Irish boy, called Paddy, Joby, Toby (what 
you like) three feet high, twenty inches wide, face of a 
weasel, steel nerves soaked in gin, active as a squirrel, 
able to drive a phaeton with a dexterity that was never 
at a loss in London or Paris, riding a horse like old 
Franconi, eye of a lizard (as keen as mine), rosy 
cheeks and blond hair like that of Raffaelle’s Madon- 
nas, deceitful as a prince, knowing as an elderly law- 
yer, and ten years of age, — in short, a perfect flower 
of depravity, gambling, swearing, greedy for sugar- 
plums and punch, insulting as a newspaper article, 
bold and pilfering as a gamin de Paris. He had been 
the glory and the profit of a celebrated English noble- 
man, for whom he had won over seven hundred thou- 
sand francs as a jockey. The lord was fond of him ; 
his tiger was a curiosity ; no one in London possessed 
such a tiny tiger. Perched on a race-horse, Joby Toby 
looked like a falcon. Well, the time came when the 
lord dismissed Toby Joby, not for greediness, not for 
theft, nor murder, nor criminal conversation, nor for 
ill-behavior, insolence to milady, or rifling the pockets 
of milady’s maid, not even for taking bribes from 


Nucingen and Co, : Bankers, 433 

milord’s rivals on the race-course, or for amusing him- 
self on Sundays, — in short, not for any reprehensible 
action. Paddy could have done all those things, he 
might even have spoken to milord without being spoken 
to, and milord would have pardoned him that domestic 
crime. Milord would have borne many things from 
Toby, so much did he value him. The boy could drive 
a two-wheeled cart tandem, or ride the leader, his feet 
not reaching the shafts, and he himself looking like 
one of those angels’ heads the Venetian painters group 
around the feet of the Father Eternal. An English jour- 
nalist bethought him of giving a delightful descriptiou 
of this little angel ; he said he was too pretty for a tigei 
and offered to bet he was a tamed tigress. The saying 
went round ; it grew venomous and spiteful, and finally 
became in the highest degree improper. The superla- 
tive of the improper leads to the scaffold. Milord dis^ 
missed Toby and was highly praised by milady for his 
discretion. Toby could get no situation, his status in 
Britannic zoology being thus contested. In those days 
Godefroid was flourishing at the French embassy in 
London, where he heard of Joby Toby Paddy’s mis- 
adventure. The diplomat went in search of the tiger, 
whom he found weeping while he devoured a pot of 
jam ; for the little rascal had already squandered the 
guineas with which milord had gilded the blow. Thus 
it happened that on his return to France, Godefroid 
21 


434 Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 

brought among us the most charming tiger of all Eng- 
land ; he was known by his tiger, as Couture here 
is remarked for his waistcoats. He was received at 
once into the confederation of the club known to-day 
by the name of ‘ de Grammont.’ After renouncing 
the diplomatic career he alarmed no ambitions, his wit 
was not dangerous, and society welcomed him cordially. 
We, my friends, would have our vanity deeply hurt if 
we encountered only smiling faces ; we like to see the 
bitter grin of envious souls. But Godefroid did not like 
to be hated. Every man to his taste! Now let's 
come to the solid — to material life. His apartment, 
where I ’ve done justice to many a breakfast, was 
noted for a mysterious dressing-room, very ornate, full 
of comfortable things, a fireplace, a bath-tub, a secret 
staircase, muffled doors, easy locks, discreet hinges, 
windows of ground glass, curtains impenetrable. 
Though the bedroom presented a scene of the choicest 
disorder that the most ardent painter in water-color 
could possibly have desired, and everything in it 
smacked of the Bohemian life of an elegant young man, 
the dressing-room, on the contrary, was like a sanc- 
tuary, — white, clean, neat, warm, no draughts, carpet 
on which to walk with bare feet. That's the smn- 

o 

manual of a bachelor who is really a dandy and under- 
stands living. A shrewd old man-servant, very clever 
in veterinary art, took care of the horses and groomed 


Nucingen and Co. : Banhers. 435 

Godefroid. He formerly belonged to the late Monsieur 
de Beaudenord, and felt for Godefroid an inveterate 
affection, — that heart- sickness vfhioh^ alas! the savings- 
banks have now contrived to cure among servants. 
All material happiness rests on figures. You, to whom 
Parisian life is known to its every exostosis, you are 
aware that having seventeen francs to pay in taxes, 
and any amount of fancies, Godefroid needed seven- 
teen thousand francs a year to meet his expenses. 
Well, my dear friends, I ought to have told you before 
that the day when he got out of bed a man, having 
attained his majority, the Marquis d’Aiglemont, his 
guardian, brought him his account, and handed over an 
investment on the Grand-Livre which gave him eigh- 
teen thousand francs a year, — the remains of the pater- 
nal opulence skimped by the great republican reduction, 
and riddled by Imperial arrears. His virtuous guardian 
also put him in possession of thirty thousand francs, 
saved during his minority and lying in the banking- 
house of Nucingen ; telling him, with the grace of a 
great seigneur and the free and easy tone of a soldier 
of the Empire, that he had laid by that sum for the 
follies of youth. ‘ If you will listen to me, Godefroid/ 
said the marquis, ‘ instead of spending that money 
foolishly like so many others, spend it on useful fol- 
lies ; accept the post of attache to an embassy in 
Turin, go from there to Naples, from Naples return to 


486 Nucingen and Co, : Ba7iker8, 

London, and you will have got both amusement and 
instruction for your money. Later, if you want to 
take a career, you will not have wasted either your 
time or your means.’ The late Aiglemont was worth 
more than his reputation, which can’t be said for any 
of us.” 

“A young man who starts in life at twenty-one 
with eighteen thousand francs a year is ruined,” said 
Couture. 

“ Unless he is a miser, or a very superior being,” 
said Blondet. 

“ Godefroid sojourned in all the four capitals of 
Italy,” continued Bixiou. “ He saw Germany and 
England, a little of St. Petersburg, and went through 
Holland ; but he parted with his thirty thousand francs 
as if he had thirty thousand francs a year. He lived 
everywhere on supreme de volaille, aspic jelly, and 
French wines, spoke his own tongue m all countries 
and heard no other; in short, he virtually never left 
Paris. He would gladly have depraved his heart and 
hardened it, lost his illusions, learned to hear all things 
without blushing, to talk without saying anything, and 
penetrate the secret interests of the great powers — 
Pooh ! he could hardly provide himself with four tongues ; 
I mean, lay in four words about an idea. He returned 
to France, the widower of several wearisome dowagers 
(they call them bonnes fortunes in foreign lands), etill 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers. 437 

timid and quite unformed ; a good fellow, very trustful, 
incapable of saying barm of the persons who admitted 
him to their houses and with far too much good faith 
to be a diplomatist, — in short, what we should call a 
loyal soul.” 

“ In other words a muff, who held his eighteen 
thousand francs a year at the mercy of the first 
speculator,” said Couture. 

“That devil of a Couture is so in the habit of 
anticipating dividends that he anticipates the end of 
my history,” cried Bixiou. “Where was I? Oh! 
Beaudenord’s return. When he was installed, as I 
have told you, on the quai Malaquais it appeared that 
a thousand francs a year more than he had would just 
be insufficient to pay for his share of a box at the 
two Opera-houses. When he lost twenty-five or thirty 
louis at cards or in a bet, of course he paid ; but if he 
won, he spent them all the same; just as we should 
do if we were fools enough to let ourselves bet. 
Beaudenord, pinched for money in spite of his eighteen 
thousand francs a year, felt the necessity of creating 
what we call to-day a ‘ margin.* He was very 
desirous not to get himself into difficulties. He went 
to his late guardian and consulted him. ‘ My dear 
boy,* said d*Aiglemont, ‘ the Funds are now at par ; 
sell out ; I *ve sold my shares and my wife’s. 
Nucingen has my whole capital and gives me six per 


438 Nucingen and Co. : Bankers. 

cent. Do as I do ; you ’ll get one per cent more ; and 
one per cent is enough to put you completely at your 
ease.’ In three days Godefroid was ‘at his ease.* 
His revenues being in perfect equilibrium with his 
wants, his happiness was, very naturally, perfect. If 
it were possible to interrogate all young men in Paris 
with a single look, as it appears will be the case 
in the Last Judgment with the millions of genera- 
tions which have swarmed in this universe and all 
other globes as national guards or savages — if, I say, 
we could ask those young men whether the joys of 
twenty-six years of age do not consist in riding on 
horseback, driving a tilbury, or a cabriolet, with a tiger 
no bigger than my thumb and fresh and rosy as Paddy 
Joby Toby ; in appearing elegantly clothed according 
to the vestimental laws which rule at eight in the 
morning, midday, four in the afternoon, and at night ; 
in being received at all the embassies, and gathering 
there the ephemeral flowers of superficial and cosmo- 
politan friendships; in carrying their names, clothes, 
and heads with becoming dignity; in living in a 
charming little entresol like that I have described ; in 
being able to invite friends to the Rocher de Cancale 
without previously consulting their waistcoat pockets, 
and having always for themselves a good nap on their 
hats, what would be their reply? We ourselves, being 
superior men, would all declare that such happiness 


Nucingen and Co, : Bankers, 439 

was incomplete ; that it was like the Madeleine without 
an altar ; that in order to be happy one must love or be 
loved, or love without being loved, or be loved without 
loving, or be able to love right and left anyhow. Let 
us therefore drop material happiness and get to moral 
happiness. When, in January, 1823, Godefroid found 
himself firmly poised in all his enjoyments, having 
voice and footing in the various Parisian societies 
where it pleased him to go, he felt the necessity of 
sheltering himself under the protection of a parasol; in 
other words, he resolved to betake himself, sentiments, 
ideas, affections, and all, to a woman, a woman! Wo- 
man ! Ah ! At first he conceived the gloomy idea of hav- 
ing a hopeless passion ; and he hovered for a time round 
his handsome cousin, Madame d’Aiglemont, without per- 
ceiving that a diplomatist was already her Faust in a 
waltz. The year 1825 went by in attempts, searches, 
and useless coquetries. The beloved object did not 
appear. Passions are extremely rare. In these days 
as many barricades are set up in manners and morals 
as in the streets ! Just as I told you, my brethren, 
the Improper is getting a hold upon us ! Well, to cut 
my story shorter, I won’t inflict upon you a detailed 
description of the person in whom Godefroid at last 
recognized his mate. Age, nineteen; height, one 
metre fifty centimetres ; fair hair, idem eyelashes, blue 
eyes, medium forehead, arched nose, small mouthy 


440 Nucingen and Co. : Banltern. 

short chin rather prominent, oval face ; particular marks 
or signs, none. There you have the passport descrip- 
tive list of the beloved object. Don’t be more exact- 
ing than the police, the mayors of towns and villages 
in France, and all gendarmes and other constituted 
authorities. Besides, that ’s the rough block of the 
Venus de’ Medici, give you my word. Well, the first 
time Godefroid went to one of those balls of Madame 
de Nucingen by which she has acquired, cheaply 
enough, a certain reputation, he saw, in a quadrille, 
the Person to love, and was rapt in admiration of that 
tiny figure. The blond hair rippled in cascades of gold 
on a fresh and innocent young head, like that of a 
naiad stooping to the crystal fountain at its source to 
gaze at the flowers of her springtide (that ’s the new 
style of writing, — phrases, you know, that slip along 
like the macaroni we ate just now). You all know the 
effect of fair hair and blue eyes combined with the 
soft, languorous, but decent movements of a waltz. 
A girl of that sort does not strike you audaciously on 
the heart like the brunettes who seem to say by a look, 
as the Spanish beggars do, ‘ Your money or your life ; 
five francs or I despise you.’ Those insolent beauties 
(they are not dangerous) may please some men, but in 
my opinion the fair one who has the luck to seem 
excessively tender and complying, and yet not lose her 
rights of teasing, nagging, endless argument, pretended 


Nucingen and Co,: Bankers, 441 

jealousy, — in fact, all that makes women so adorable, 
— is more sure of being married than the brunette. 
Isaure, — that was the name of the beloved object, — 
white as an Alsacian (she was born in Strasburg and 
spoke German with a delightful little French accent), 
danced charmingly. Her feet, not mentioned by the 
bye in her descriptive list, though they might have 
found their proper place under the rubric of ‘ particu- 
lar signs," were remarkable for their smallness and 
for a certain peculiar motion which the old dancing- 
masters used to call Jlic-Jlac : a quality also found in 
the charming utterance of Mademoiselle Mars, — for 
the Muses are sisters ; the dancer and the poet both 
touch earth with their feet. Isaure’s feet spoke with a 
nicety, a precision, a lightness, a rapidity, which 
augured well of the things of her heart ‘ She has 
flic-Jlac!' was the high praise of Marcel, the only 
dancing-master who ever deserved to be called great. 
People said in those days ‘ the great Marcel,’ as they 
said ‘ the great Frederick,’ in Frederick the Great’s 
day.” 

Did he ever compose a ballet ? ” asked Finot. 

“ Yes ; something like ‘ The Four Elements.’ But 
Isaure didn’t dance on the points of her toes; she 
stayed on the ground, and swayed to the music with- 
out pirouettes, neither more nor less voluptuously than 
is becoming in a young lady. Marcel used to say with 


442 Nucingen and Co, : Bankers. 

profound philosophy that every phase of life had its 
own dance : a married woman danced differently from 
a young girl, a lawyer from a financier, a soldier from 
a court page ; he even went so far as to declare that an 
infantry officer ought to dance differently from a 
cavalry officer; starting from that point he analyzed 
society. — But all those fine shades of discrimination 
are far away from us now.” 

“ Ah I ” saidBlondet, “ there you lay your finger on 
a great misfortune. If France had understood Marcel 
the French Revolution would never have taken place.” 

“ Godefroid,” pursued Bixiou, “ did not have the 
advantage of roaming over Europe without observing 
carefully the dances of foreign lands. Without that 
profound knowledge of choregraphy (called futile !) he 
might never have loved this young person ; but of all 
the three hundred guests assembled that evening at the 
Nucingen ball he was the only one to understand the 
love, unuttered but betrayed, that talking feet could 
tell. It is true that Isaure d’Aldrigger’s method of 
dancing was observed by others, but in these days 
when we glide over the surface of things and dwell on 
nothing, one said : ‘ There ’s a girl who dances wonder- 
fully well * (he was the clerk of a notary) ; another 
said : ‘ That little person knows how to dance ’ (this 
was a lady in a turban) ; the third, a woman of thirty : 
‘There ’s a little person who does n’t dance badly.’ — But 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers. 443 

to return to Marcel ; I parody his famous speech : ‘ How 
many things there are in a forward-and-back ! * ” 
“Come, get on a little faster,” said Blondet; “you 
are spinning it out too fine.” 

“ Isaure,” resumed Bixiou, with an oblique glance at 
Blondet, “ was wearing a simple gown of white crape 
with green ribbons, a camellia in her hair, a camellia 
at her belt, a camellia on the hem of her dress, a 
camellia — ” 

“Here come Sancho’s three hundred goats! ” 

“ This is literature, my dear fellow. ‘ Clarissa* is a 
masterpiece; it has fourteen volumes, but an obtuse 
vaudevillist will tell it you all in one act. Provided I 
amuse you, what are you growling about? I *m ex- 
plaining this toilet, which was really delicious ; don’t 
you like camellias? would you rather have dahlias? 
No. Well, then, take a marron glace, — here!” and 
Bixiou must have thrown a marron to Blondet, for we 
heard it fall upon his plate. 

“Well, go on; I was wrong,” said Blondet. 

“ I resume,” continued Bixiou. “ ‘ Would n’t she 
be nice to marry?’ said Rastignac to Beaudenord, 
pointing out to him the girl with the white camellias. 
(Rastignac was one of Godefroid’s intimates.) ‘ That ’s 
just what I was thinking,’ replied Godefroid in his ear. 
‘ I was saying to myself that instead of trembling all 
the time about one’s happiness, hardly able to slip a 


444 Nucingen and Co,: BanlcerSo 

word into inattentive ears, looking to see at the opera 
if there ’s a red flower or a white one in somebody’s 
hair, a gloved hand on the side of a carriage in the 
Bois (as at Milan on the Corso) ; instead of stealing a 
sweetmeat behind a door, like a footman drinking the 
lees of a bottle ; instead of wasting one’s intellect on 
sending and receiving a letter like a postman ; instead 
of obtaining infinite tenderness in two lines to-day, 
five volumes in folio to-morrow, an edition in two 
pages the day after, — fluctuations which are fatiguing, 
— how much better to go in for the grand passion 
envied by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and love, out and 
out, a young person like Isaure, with the intention of 
making her one’s wife if, after an exchange of senti- 
ments, hearts agree, — in short, be a happy Werther ! * 
‘ That ’s an absurdity like others,’ said Rastignac, 
without laughing. ‘ In your place perhaps even I 
should plunge into the infinite delights of such asceti- 
cism — it is new, original, and it won’t cost much. 
Your Monna Lisa is sweet, but silly as the music of a 
ballet ; I warn you of that.’ The way in which Rasti- 
gnac uttered the last sentence made Beaudenord fancy 
that his friend had some reason for wishing to disen- 
chant him. His diplomatic habits made him scent a 
rival — it is strange how missed vocations color our 
lives ! Godefroid proceeded to fall in love with Made- 
moiselle Isaure d’Aldrigger so palpably that Rastignac 


Nucingen and Co,: Bankers, 445 

went in search of a tall girl, who was talking with some 
one in the cardroom, to whom he whispered: ‘ Mal- 
vina, your sister has caught a fish in her net weighing 
eighteen thousand francs a year ; he has a name, and a 
certain position in the world, also a good appearance ; 
watch them ; if they go in for perfect love, make your- 
self Isaure’s confidante, and don’t let her write a single 
word until you have corrected it.’ About two o’clock 
in the morning, a footman came up to a little creature, 
looking like a Swiss shepherdess, forty years of age 
and coquettish as Zerlina in the opera of Don Juan, 
near to whom Isaure was standing. ‘ Madame la 
baronne’s carriage waits,’ said the man; and Gode- 
froid then saw his German beauty leading her fantastic 
mother toward the antechamber, followed by Malvina. 
Godefroid, who pretended (simpleton!) to go and see 
what mischief Toby was after, had the happiness of 
beholding Isaure and Malvina bundling up their sim- 
pering mamma in a fur pelisse, and rendering each 
other those little services required by a nocturnal trip 
through Paris. The two sisters examined him from 
the corners of their eyes like well- trained cats watching 
a mouse without appearing to see it. He took much 
satisfaction in observing the tone, manners, and livery 
of the tall Alsacian who, with his well-gloved hands, 
put on the furred overshoes of his three ladies. Never 
were two sisters so unlike as Isaure and Malvina. 


446 


Nucingen and Co, : Banlcers, 


Malvina, the elder, was tall and brown, Isaure, tiny 
and fair; the features of the latter were refined and 
delicate; those of the former, vigorous and strongly 
marked. Isaure was a type of the woman who reigns 
by want of strength, whom a mere school-boy feels him- 
self called on to protect ; Malvina was the woman of 
Avez-vous vu dans Barcelone ? Beside her sister, Isaure 
had the effect of a miniature near a portrait in oils. 
‘ She is rich 1 * said Godef roid to Eastignac, re-entering 
the ballroom. — ‘ Who? * — ‘ That young girl.’ — ‘Oh! 
Isaure d’Aldrigger. Of course she is. The mother is 
a widow ; her husband employed Nucingen in his bank- 
ing-house at Strasburg. Do you want to meet her 
again? Pay a compliment to Madame de Restaud, 
who gives a ball day after to-morrow; the Baronne 
d’Aldrigger and her daughters will be there, and you ’ll 
get an invitation.’ For the next three days, in the 
dim chamber of his brain, Godef roid saw his Isaure 
with white camellias and sweet motions of the head, 
just as we can see any object that we have gazed at 
long in a bright light if we shut our eyes; it shines 
within them in miniature, radiant, glowing, sparkling 
in the murky darkness.” 

“Bixiou! you are falling into phenomena ; keep to 
tableaus,” cried Couture. 

“ Well, here ’s one,” said Bixiou, striking, no doubt, 
the attitude of a cafe waiter. “ Now, attention, gen- 


Nucingen and Co, : Banhers. 447 

tlemen ! Finot, one has to pull upon your mouth aa 
the driver of a coucou on that of his steed. Madame 
Theodora-Marguerite-Wilhelmine Adolphus (of the 
house of Adolphus & Co., Mannheim), widow of Baron 
d’Aldrigger, was not a good stout German woman, 
sturdy and reflective, with a white face, gilded like the 
froth on a pot of beer, and enriched with all the 
patriarchal virtues possessed by Germany — speaking 
Dovelistically. Her face was still fresli, rosy on the 
cbeek-bones as that of a Nuremberg doll, with lively 
corkscrew curls upon the forehead, enticing eyes, not 
the first white hair to be seen, and a slim waist, the 
charms of which were set in relief by gowns made 
with bones like a corset. On her forehead and tem- 
ples were just a few wrinkles, which she would gladly, 
like Ninon, have banished to her heels, but the wrin- 
kles would persist in tracing their zigzags in more 
visible places. As an only heiress, spoilt by her 
parents, spoilt by her husband, spoilt by the city of 
Strasburg, and perpetually spoilt by her daughters, 
who adored her, the baroness still allowed herself to 
wear pink, and short petticoats, and a pretty knot at 
the point of her corsage, which defined her waist. 
When a Parisian saw this baroness stepping along the 
boulevard, he smiled and condemned her, without ad- 
mitting (as a jury has lately done in a fratricidal cas‘‘') 
extenuating circumstances. But the scoffer is always 


448 Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 

a superficial being, and, consequently, a cruel one ; tbe 
rascal never considers the share that belongs to society 
in the absurdities he laughs at, — for Nature has made 
people stupid ; only it is social life that makes them 
fools.’* 

“What I think fine in Bixiou,” said Blondet, “is 
that he is thorough ; when he does n’t scoff at others, 
he scoffs at himself.” 

“ Blondet, I’ll owe you one for that,” said Bixiou, 
significantly. “ Well, as I was saying, if this little 
baroness was lackadaisical, heedless, selfish, and inca- 
pable of forethought, the responsibility for her defects 
lies upon the house of Adolphus & Co., Mannheim, 
and on the purblind love of Baron d’Aldrigger. Gentle 
as a lamb, the baroness had a tender heart, easily 
moved, but unfortunately the emotion lasted but a 
short time, and, consequently, was soon superseded. 
When the baron died, the shepherdess came near fol- 
lowing him, so violent and so true was her grief ; but 
the next day, at breakfast, they served her some peas 
which she liked, and those delicious peas calmed her. 
She was so blindly loved by her two daughters, and by 
her servants, that the whole household rejoiced in a 
circumstance which enabled them to conceal from her 
sight the sad spectacle of the departure of the body. 
Isaure and Malvina hid their tears from this adored 
mother, and occupied her mind in choosing mourning 


Nucingen and Co, : Bankers, 449 

clothes, while the Requiem was being sung for their 
father. When a coffin is placed beneath that great 
black-and-white catafalque, spotted with wax, which 
serves for the bodies of three thousand well-bred per- 
sons before it gets renovated (that’s the estimate of 
an undertaker’s assistant, a philosopher whom I once 
consulted on this point) ; when a very indifferent sub- 
priest has bawled out the Dies irce^ and the head- 
priest, not less indifferent, is saying the service, — do 
you know what the friends dressed in black, standing 
or seated about the church, say to each other? There, 
Couture ! there ’s a tableau for you ; can’t you see 
them? ‘How much do you think old Aldrigger has 
left?’ says Desroches to Taillefer, who, you remem- 
ber, gave us the finest known orgy just before hia 
death — ” 

“Desroches? Was Desroches a lawyer in those 
days ? ” 

“He bought his practice in 1822,” said Couture* 
“ A bold thing for the son of a poor clerk who never 
earned more than eighteen hundred francs a year, and 
whose mother kept an office for stamped papers. He 
worked cruelly hard from 1818 to 1822. He entered 
Derville’s office as fourth clerk, and was made second 
in 1819.” 

“ Desroches ! ” 

“Yes,” said Bixiou. “Desroches has sat like us. 


450 Nueingen and Co. : Bankers, 

as poor as Job, on the dunghills of poverty. Sick of 
wearing coats too narrow and sleeves too short, he 
rushed through his apprenticeship in despair, and had 
just bought a litre nu^ — a practice but no clients. A 
lawyer without a penny, without briefs, without friends 
(except us), he had to pay the interests on the pur- 
chase-money, and give bonds.” 

“ He used to make me think then of a tiger got 
loose from the Jardin des Plantes,” said Couture. 
“ Lean, tawny-haired, eyes the color of Spanish to- 
bacco, sour skin, cold, phlegmatic in manner, but 
harsh to widows, cutting to orphans, a furious worker, 
the terror of his clerks, who were not allowed to lose 
their time; able, artful, double-faced, honeyed in 
speech, never angry, but filled with hatred, — the 
hatred of the legal fraternity.” 

“ But he has some good in him,” cried Finot. “ He 
is devoted to his friends ; his first act was to take 
Godeschal, Mariette’s brother, for his head-clerk.” 

“In Paris,” said Blondet, “the race of lawyer has 
but two shades ; there ’s the lawyer-honest-man, who 
lives within the terms of the law, pushes through his 
cases, doesn’t run after business, neglects nothing, 
counsels his clients loyally, makes them compromise on 
doubtful points, — a Derville, in short. Then there ’s 
the starveling-lawyer, to whom all is fish provided his 
costs are secured; who would pull down, not moun- 


Nudngen and Co.: Bankers, 451 

tains (those he sells), but planets ; who undertakes to 
make a scoundrel triumph over an honest man, if by 
chance the honest man can be legally put in the wrong. 
Desroches, our friend Desroches, saw his chance at 
that trade, very poorly practised by the poor devils of 
his profession ; he bought up causes from men who 
were afraid of losing them ; he flung himself into petti- 
fogging as a man might who was resolved to wrench 
himself out of poverty. He was right ; and he did his 
business honestly. He made himself protectors among 
public men by straightening their affairs, as he did for 
our dear des Lupeaulx, whose position was badly com- 
promised. It needed such influence to carry him along, 
foi’ when Desroches began he was very coldly looked 
upon by the courts, — he who had such diflSculty in rec- 
tifying the blunders of his clients. Come, Bixiou, go 
on ! tell us how Desroches came to go to that church.” 

“ ‘ D’Aldrigger left seven or eight hundred thousand 
francs,* replied Taillefer to Desroches’ question. — ^ Ah, 
bah ! there is but one person who knows what that for- 
tune really is,* said Werbrust, a friend of the de- 
ceased. — ‘ Who ? * — ‘ That fat knave Nucingen. He *11 
go to the cemetery ; d*Aldrigger was his patron, and, 
out of gratitude, he has been helping the goodman to 
invest.* — ‘The widow will feel the difference.* — 
‘How so?* — ‘Why, d’Aldrigger loved his wife. 
Don’t laugh, they are looking at us.* — ‘ Tiens, there 


452 Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 

comes du Tillet; he ’s late, gets in for the Epistle/ — 
‘ He ’ll marry the eldest girl, no doubt.’ — ‘ Is that 
likely?’ asked Desroches, ‘he is more than ever 
pledged to Madame Roguin.’ — ‘ He ! pledged ! you 
don’t know him.’ — ‘ What do you know of the position 
of Nucingen and du Tillet? ’ asked Desroches. — ‘ Just 
this,’ said Taillefer. ‘ Nucingen is a man who has 
probably made way with the capital of his old patron, 
and wants to return it to him.’ — ‘ Heu ! heu ! ’ exclaimed 
Werbrust, ‘ it is devilish damp in these churches, heu I 
heu ! ’ — ‘ Return it ! how ? ’ — ‘ This way. Nucingen 
knows that du Tillet has a great fortune, he wants to 
marry him to Malvina ; but du Tillet distrusts Nucin- 
gen. To onlookers, the game is amusing.’ — ‘ Dear 
me!’ said Werbrust, ‘is that girl already marriage- 
able ? How fast we are going old ! ’ — ‘ Malvina 
d’Aldrigger is over twenty, my friend. Old d’Aldrig- 
ger was married in 1800. He gave us some fine fetes 
in Strasburg, on the occasion of his marriage and the 
birth of Malvina. That was in 1801 at the Peace of 
Amiens, and we are now in 1823, papa Werbrust. In 
those days everything was Ossianized, and the baby 
was called Malvina. Six years later, under the Em- 
pire, chivalry came to the front, and there was a mania 
for Partantpour la Syrie — a lot of stuff! D’Aldrig- 
ger then named his second daughter Isaure; she is 
now seventeen; that makes two girls to marry.’ ^ 


Nucingen and Co.: Banken. 453 

‘ Those three women won’t have a penny in ten years,* 
said Werbrust, confidentially to Desroches. — ‘There’s 
d’Aldrigger’s valet,’ said Taillefer, ‘ the old fellow who 
is howling and weeping over there ; he saw those girls 
grow up, and he is capable of anything to provide 
them a living.’ — Priests at the desk : Dies irce. — 
Choristers: Dies illoe , — Taillefer: ‘Adieu, Werbrust, 
that Dies iroe makes me think too much of my poor 
son.’ — ‘I’m going too ; it is too damp here,’ said 
Werbrust. — The beggars at the door : ‘ A few sous, 
messieurs, dear messieurs ! ’ — The beadle : ‘ Pan ! 
pan! For the needs of the Church.' — The priests: 
‘Amen!’ — A friend: ‘What did he die of?’ — An 
idle joker: ‘Aneurism of the heel.’ — A passer: ‘ Who 
is this personage who has let himself die ? ’ — A 
relation: ‘The President de Montesquieu.’ — Beadle 
to the beggars : ‘ Come, be off with you ; they’ ve 
given us money on your account ; don’t ask anything 
more ! ’ ” 

“ What vim ! what spirit ! ” cried Couture. 

In fact, we seemed to hear the whole movement that 
took place in the church. Bixiou imitated all, even to 
the shuffling of the feet of the men who went with the 
body. 

“ Poets, novelists, writers of all kinds say many fine 
things about Parisian manners and customs,” said 
Bixiou; “ but that’s the truth about funerals. Out of 


454 Nucingen and Co.: Banhers^ 

every hundred persons who pay the last duty to some 
poor devil of a dead man, ninety-nine talk of business 
and pleasure in the church. To find some poor little 
real sorrow demands impossible circumstances. In 
fact, is there such a thing as grief without egotism?” 

“ Heu ! heu ! ” exclaimed Blondet. “ There is nothing 
so little respected as death — perhaps that ’s because 
there's nothing less respectable.” 

“ It is so common ! ” remarked Bixiou. “ Well,” he 
continued, “ Nucingen and du Tillet accompanied the 
body to the cemetery. The old valet went on foot. 
The banker’s carriage was driven behind that of the 
clergy. ‘Well, my good frent,’ said Nucingen to du 
Tillet as the procession turned into the boulevard, — 
‘ now is a fine time to marry Malvina ; you can be the 
prodector of dat poor weeping family ; you ’ll get a 
home already made, and Malvina is certainly a berfect 
treasure.’ ” 

“Good heavens! I think I hear that old Robert 
Macaire of a Nucingen talking,” said Finot. 

“ ‘ A charming person,’ replied Ferdinand du Tillet, 
with fire but without the least warmth.” 

“ All du Tillet in ten words I ” cried Couture. 

“ ‘ She may seem ugly to those who don’t know her,* 
went on du Tillet ; ‘ but I own she has soul.’ — ‘ And 
heart,’ replied Nucingen ; ‘ that ’s the point of the affair, 
mine frent ; you ’ll get devotion and intelligence. In 


Nucingen and Co,: Bankers. 455 

this devilish business of ours we never can tell 
who ’ll live and who ’ll die ; it is therefore a great 
blessing to be able to rely on the heart of a wife. 
I ’d exchange Delphine, who, you know, brought me 
over a million, for Malvina, whose dot is n’t as pig 
as dat.’ — ‘How much has she?’ — ‘I don’t know 
exactly,’ said the banker ; ‘ but there ’s something.’ 
— ‘ She has a mother who likes pink ! ’ said du Tillet. 
That remark put a stop to Nucingen’s attempts. 
After dinner he informed Theodora-Wilhelmine, that 
there were scarcely more than four hundred thousand 
francs of her husband’s fortune left. The daughter of 
the Aldophuses of Mannheim reduced to twenty-four 
thousand francs a year puzzled her brains to under- 
stand that condition of things. ‘ Why ! * she said to 
Malvina, ‘ I have always had six thousand francs a 
year for the dressmaker alone. Where did your 
father get the money? With twenty-four thousand a 
year we shall be poor. Ah ! if my father could see 
me fallen thus he would die of it, if he were n’t dead 
already. Poor Wilhelmine ! ’ and she began to weep. 
Malvina, not knowing how to console her mother, 
represented to her that she was young and pretty, and 
pink became her, and she could go to the Opera and 
the Bouffons with Madame de Nucingen. She soothed 
her mother into a dream of fetes, balls, concerts, beauti* 
ful gowns and great successes, — a dream which began 


456 Nueingen and Oo,: Banhers. 

under the curtains of a blue silk bed in an elegant 
chamber next to that in which Monsieur le Baron 
d’Aldrigger had expired two days earlier. It is 
now necessary that I should tell you the history of 
that gentleman in three words. During his lifetime 
that respectable Alsacian, a banker in Strasburg, had 
enriched himself to the tune of three millions. In 1800, 
then aged thirty-six, and at the apogee of a fortune 
made during the Revolution, he married, from love and 
ambition both, the sole heiress of the Adolphuses of 
Mannheim, a young girl adored by her parents, whose 
fortune she inherited within ten years. D’Aldrigger 
was then baronified by H. M. the Emperor and King, 
for his fortune was doubled. Unluckily, he became 
possessed by a passion for the great man who had 
thus ennobled him. So, between 1814 and 1815, 
he ruined himself by seriously believing in the sun of 
Austerlitz. The honest Alsacian did not suspend pay- 
ment, did not buy out the interests of his creditors with 
stocks and bonds which he knew were valueless ; no® 
he paid in cash from his desk, retired from banking, 
and deserved the comment of his former head-clerk, 
Nucingen: ‘Honest man, but a fool!’ All debts 
settled, there remained to him five hundred thousand 
francs and outstanding debts from an Empire which no 
longer existed. ‘ That ’s what it is to believe too much 
in Napoleon,’ he remarked on seeing the results of his 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers. 457 

liquidation. When you ’ve been first in a town, how is 
it possible to stay there when you’ve gone under? 
The Strasburg banker did what all ruined provincials 
do, — he came to Paris, where he courageously wore 
tricolor braces embroidered with the imperial eagles, and 
consorted with the Bonapartists. He placed his funds 
in the hands of the Baron de Nucingen, who gave him 
eight per cent for all, and bought his imperial claims at a 
discount of only sixty per cent, which made d’ Aldrigger 
wring Nucingen’s hand and say : ‘ I knew you had the 
heart of an Alsacian.’ Nucingen forced our friend des 
Lupeaulx, then in the government, to pay those claims 
in full. Though badly clipped, the Alsacian still had a 
working revenue of forty-four thousand francs. His 
regrets, however, soon became complicated by spleen, — 
a disease which fastens on men accustomed to live in the 
excitement of business when they are forcibly weaned 
from it. The banker made it his duty to sacrifice him- 
self — the noble heart! — to his wife, whose fortune 
was lost with his ; she had let him take it with the care- 
lessness of a girl who knows nothing of business. 
Madame d’Aldrigger was therefore supplied with all 
the luxuries to which she was accustomed ; and the void 
caused by the loss of her social position in Strasburg 
was covered by the pleasures and enjoyments of Paris. 
The house of Nucingen then stood, as it still stands, at 
the head of financial society, and the wily baron made 


458 Nucingen and Co, : Bankers. 

it a point of honor to treat the honest baron in the best 
possible manner. The old man’s noble virtue brought 
credit to the salon Nucingen. Every winter dipped 
deeper into d’Aldrigger’s capital; but he dared not 
reproach the pearl of the Adolphuses ; on the contrary, 
his tenderness was the most simple-hearted and the 
most unintelligent this world has ever seen. ‘ Worthy 
man, but a fool ! ’ He died saying to himself, ‘ What 
will become of them without me ? ’ At a moment 
when he was alone with his old valet, Wirth, the 
goodman, between two gasps, commended his wife and 
daughters to his servant’s care, as if that Alsacian 
Caleb were the only reasonable being he had about 
him. Three years later, in 1826, Isaure was twenty- 
five years old, and Malvina, the elder, was still un- 
married. By dint of going into society, Malvina at 
last discovered how superficial all social relations are, 
and how all things are there examined and rated. 
Like most girls who are said to be ‘ well-brought-up,’ 
Malvina had begun by being ignorant of the mechanism 
of life, the importance of wealth, the difficulty of 
obtaining ready money, and the cost of living. Con- 
sequently, during these six years, each item of the 
knowledge she acquired was a wound to her. The 
four hundred thousand francs left by the late d’Aldrigger 
in the hands of the house of Nucingen were placed to 
the credit of the baroness, and in times of need the 


Nucingen and Co. .• Bankers, 459 

shepherdess drew from that fund as if it were an 
inexhaustible spring. At the moment when our pigeon, 
Godefroid, advanced towards his dove, Nucingen, 
knowing the nature of the baroness, had explained to 
Malvina the financial situation of her mother: three 
hundred thousand francs was all that remained in his 
hands ; her income of twenty-four thousand francs was 
therefore reduced to eighteen thousand. Wirth had 
managed to keep the household on its old footing for 
three years. After this revelation of the banker, the 
horses were given up, the carriage sold, the coachman 
dismissed by Malvina, without her mother’s knowledge. 
The furniture of the house, about to be renewed after 
ten years’ service, was left as it was ; fortunately, it had 
all faded together ; so, to those who love harmony, this 
was only half an evil. The baroness, a flower hitherto 
well preserved, now began to resemble a chilled and 
shrivelled rose left hanging alone on the bushes in 
November. I who am telling you all this, I saw that 
opulence diminishing tone after tone and tint by tint ! 
Give you my word, it was horrible I That was my last 
grief. After that I said to myself, ‘What folly to 
take an interest in others ! ’ While I was a clerk in a 
government oflSce I was silly enough to care for the 
people with whom I dined ; I defended them if any one 
abused them, I never slandered them myself, I — oh ! 
I was a babe ! Well, when her daughter explained the 


460 Nucingen and Co, : Banlcers. 

situation, the ci-devant pearl cried out : ‘ Oh, my poor 
children ! who ’ll make my gowns ? I can’t have new 
caps, or receive company, or go into society.’ What 
do you think is the greatest sign of love in a man? ” 
said Bixiou, interrupting himself. “Because, as you see, 
it was important for the family to know if Beaudenord 
was really in love with that little blonde.” 

“ He neglects his business,” said Couture. 

“ He wears three shirts a day,” said Finot. 

“ A preliminary question ! ” said Blondet. “ Can, and 
should, a superior man ever be in love ? ” 

“ Friends,” said Bixiou, with a sentimental air, “ let 
us beware, as of a venomous reptile, of the man who, 
feeling himself in love with a woman, snaps his fingers 
or throws away his cigar, saying : ‘ Pooh ! there are 
lots of others in the world ! ’ Government sometimes 
employs that citizen, as we know, at the ministry of 
Foreign affairs. Blondet, I request you to notice that 
Godefroid had quitted diplomacy.” 

“Well, then, say he was absorbed ; love is the only 
chance fools have for making their way,” replied Blondet. 

“Blondet! Blondet! then why are we all so poor?” 
cried Bixiou. 

“And why is Finot so rich?” replied Blondet. “I’ll 
tell you some day, my son, and you ’ll understand it. 
Just look at Finot fillinsf my glass as if I had carried up 
his wood I Come, go on, Bixiou.” 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 


461 


“ You put your finger upon it, the absorbed Godefroid 
made ample acquaintance with the tall Malvina, the 
volatile baroness, and the little dancer. He fell into 
servitude, — the most minute and astringent of servi- 
tudes. The corpse-like remains of that opulence did not 
revolt him. Ah! — Bah! he accustomed himself by 
degrees to the tatters. Never did the old green damask 
with white trimmings seem to that fellow either shabby, 
or spotted, or needing to be renewed. The curtains, the 
tea-table, the Chinese ornaments on the fireplace, the 
rococco chandelier, the Persian carpet worn threadbare, 
the piano, the flowered porcelain service, the napkins 
fringed (and also ragged) after the Spanish fashion, 
the chintz salon, adjoining the blue bedroom of the 
baroness, with all its accessories, were to Godefroid 
holy and sacred. Stupid women whose beauty shines 
in a manner to leave mind, heart, and soul in shadow 
can alone inspire such forgetfulness, such absorption ; 
a clever woman never abuses her advantages ; it is the 
silly little women who lay hold of a man. Beaude- 
nord told me himself that he loved that solemn old 
Wirth ; and the old fellow actually felt for his future 
master the respect which the Catholic believer feels for 
the Host. That honest Wirth was a German Gaspard, 
one of those beer-drinkers who mask their shrewdness 
by good-humor as a cardinal of the middle ages carried 
his dagger up his sleeve. Wirth, foreseeing a husband 


462 Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 

for Isaure, spun around Godefroid the encompassing 
web of his Alsacian kindliness, — the most adhesive 
glue of all gummy substances. Madame d’Aldrigger 
was profoundly improper; she thought love the most 
natural thing in the world. When Isaure and Malvina 
went to walk together in the Tuileries or the Champs 
illy sees, where they were likely to meet the young 
men of their acquaintance, the baroness would say: 
‘ Amuse yourselves, my dear girls ! ' Their friends, 
the only persons who could slander the two sisters, 
defended them ; for the extreme freedom of action 
which ever3"body enjoyed in the Aldrigger salon made 
it a unique spot in Paris. People with millions could 
scarcely have provided such evenings where all things 
were talked of wittily, where formal dressing was not 
de rigueur^ where every one was so much at his ease as 
to stay to supper without being asked. The two sisters 
corresponded with whom they pleased, and received 
their letters beside their mother without the baroness 
ever dreaming of asking what they were about. This 
adorable mother gave her daughters all the benefits of 
her own egotism, — the most amiable affection in the 
world, in the sense that selfish persons, not liking to be 
interfered with, interfere with no one, and do not worry 
the lives of those about them with brambles of advice, 
thorns of remonstrance, or those wasp-stings which 
ardent friends who want to know all things and con- 
trol all things bestow upon us.” 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers. 463 

*‘You touch my heart,” said Blondet; “but, my 
good fellow, you are not telling your tale, you are 
hlaguing.^* 

“ Blondet, if you were not drunk you 'd hurt my 
feelings. Of us four,” said Bixiou, appealing to the 
rest, “ he is the only really literary man. It is on his 
account that I do you the honor of treating you as 
gourmets. I distil my tale, and he criticises me ! My 
friends, the greatest sign of mental sterility is the 
heaping up of facts. The sublime comedy of the 
‘ Misanthrope* proves that art consists in building a 
palace on the point of a needle. Do you want me to 
tell you a tale which shall rush like a cannon-ball, and 
have no more in it than the report of a commanding 
general? We were conversing, we were laughing, and 
this journalist, this half-starved bibliophobe, demands, 
being drunk, that I should teach my tongue the silly 
ways of a book” (pretends to weep). “ A sorry day 
for French imagination when they try to dull the 
needles of its wit! Dies ine. Let us weep for 
Candide, and shout for the “ Critique of Pure Reason,** 
Symbolism, and all the other systems in five compact 
volumes put forth by Germans, who did n’t know that 
Paris had possessed them, since 1750, in a few witty 
phrases, — the diamonds of our national intellect. 
Blondet is driving the hearse of his own suicide, he 
who gives in his journal the last words of all the great 
men who die without saying anything.** 


464 Nucingen and Co. : Bankers. 

“ There you go ! *’ said Finot. 

“ I am explaining to you in what consists the happi- 
ness of a man who is not a stockholder (no reference to 
Couture). Well, now don’t you see at what a price 
Godefroid procured for himself the most extensive 
happiness a young man dreams of? He studied 
Isaure to be sure of being comprehended ! Things 
which comprehend each other must be counterparts. 
Now there ’s nothing so like to each other as nothing- 
ness and infinitude; stupidity is nothingness, genius 
is infinitude. These two lovers wrote each other the 
stupidest letters in the world, sending back and forth 
on perfumed paper the consecrated words : ‘ Angel ! ’ 
^.^olian harp! with thee I am completed!’ ‘There 
is a heart in my virile breast ! ’ ‘ Feeble woman ! 

poor me ! * — in short all the frippery of modern love. 
Godefroid remained scarcely ten minutes in any other 
salon ; he talked without pretensions of any kind to 
women, who consequently thought him very witty. 
You can judge of his absorption by one fact. Toby, 
his horses and carriages became mere secondary things 
in his existence. He was not happy unless buried in a 
comfortable arm-chair opposite to the baroness, en- 
gaged in looking at Isaure, and taking tea while 
talking with the little circle of friends who nightly 
assembled between eleven and twelve o’clock in the 
rue JouDert, where houillotte could be played without 


Nudngen and Co,: Bankers. 465 

fear. I myself always won when I played there. 
When Isaure had put out her pretty little foot in its 
black satin slipper, and Godefroid had gazed at it 
long, he outstayed the others and said to Isaure : ‘Give 
me that slipper.* Then Isaure lifted her foot, rested it 
on a chair, took off the slipper and gave it, with a look, 
such a look ! — you understand ? Godefroid ended by 
discovering a great secret in Malvina’s life. When du 

% 

Tillet rapped at the door a bright blush would color 
Malvina’s cheeks, saying plainly, ‘ Ferdinand ! * The 
eyes of the poor girl as they looked at that two-legged 
tiger lighted up like a brazier on which a draught of 
air was suddenly turned ; she betrayed extreme delight 
when Ferdinand took her aside for a private talk 
near a console or a window. How rare and beautiful 
a thing is a woman loving enough to be naive and let us 
read into her heart ! Heavens ! it is as rare in Paris as 
the singing flower in the Indies. In spite, however, of 
this intimacy, begun since the day the Aldriggers first 
appeared at Madame de Nucingen’s, Ferdinand did not 
marry Malvina. Our savage friend du Tillet did not 
show himself jealous at the assiduous court which 
Desroches was paying to Malvina, for the lawyer was 
feigning love in order to pay off the cost of his 
practice with a dot then estimated at a hundred and 
fifty thousand francs. Though deeply humiliated by 

du Tillet’s indifference, Malvina loved him too well to 

SO 


466 Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 

close the door upon him. In that girl who was all 
soul, sentiment, ardor, pride sometimes yielded to love 
and sometimes offended love called back her pride. 
Calm and cold, our Ferdinand accepted her tenderness, 
inhaled it with the tranquil pleasure of the tiger lick- 
ing the blood that stains his jaws ; he came in search of 
the proofs of it, and was seldom two days without ap- 
pearing in the rue Joubert. The rascal then possessed 
about eighteen hundred thousand francs ; the question 
of fortune could not therefore have been important to 
him, and yet he had resisted, not only Malvina, but 
also the two barons, Nucingen and Kastignac, who 
were forcing him along at the rate of seventy-five 
leagues a day — but without a thread — through the 
tortuous labyrinth of their schemes. Godefroid could 
not refrain from saying a word to his future sister-in- 
law as to the singular situation she was in between the 
banker and the lawyer. ‘ You want to lecture me 
about Ferdinand and find out the secret between us,* 
she said, frankly ‘ Dear Godefroid, say no more. 
Ferdinand*s birth, his antecedents, his fortune, have 
nothing to do with it ; therefore you may believe it is 
something extraordinary.* However, a few days later, 
Malvina took Beaudenord aside and said : ‘ I don’t 
think Monsieur Desroches is an honest man * (oh, that 
instinct of love !) ; ‘he wants to marry me, and yet he is 
paying court to the daughter of some bourgeois 1 I 


Nucmgen and Co. : Banlcers. 467 

should like to know if I am jpis-allev^ and if marriage 
is to him an affair of money ? Find out for me/ In 
spite of his cleverness Desroches could not fathom 
du Tillet ; he was afraid he meant to marry Malvina. 
Consequently, the fellow was making himself a safe 
retreat ; his financial position was now intolerable ; he 
was scarcely earning, all costs paid, enough to meet the 
interest on his debt. Women never understand such 
situations. To them the heart is always millionnaire.** 

“ But as neither Desroches nor du Tillet have 
married Malvina,” said Finot, “ explain Ferdinand’s 
secret to us.” 

“Secret? well here ’tis,” replied Bixiou. “Uni- 
versal rule : a young person who once gives her 
slipper, though she may have refused it for ten years, 
is never married by — ” 

“ Nonsense ! ” said Blondet, interrupting him. 
“ People love because they love. Here ’s Ferdinand’s 
secret. Universal rule: don’t marry when sergeant, 
because you may become Duke of Dantzic and marshal 
of France. Just see what an alliance du Tillet made 
later ! He married one of the daughters of the Comte 
de Granville, the head of one of the oldest families of 
the French magistracy.” 

‘ Desroches’s mother had a friend,” continued Bixiou, 
“ the wife of a druggist, the which had retired fat with 
a fortune. Druggists have very absurd ideas : to give 


468 Nudngen and Co. : BanJcers, 

his daughter a good education, he sent her to a board- 
ing-school! This man, Matifat, expected to marry 
his daughter on the strength of two hundred thousand 
francs in good money which did n’t smell of drugs.” 

“ Do you mean Florine’s Matifat?” asked Blondet. 

“ Well, yes I Lousteau’s, yours, ours, in short 1 Those 
Matifats, then lost to us, had come to live in the rue 
du Cherche-Midi, the quarter farthest from the rue des 
Lombards, where they had made their fortune. I ’ve 
studied them, those Matifats! In my young days 
at the ministerial galleys I was jammed for eight hours 
out of the twenty-four among a lot of twenty-two- 
carat ninnies. I have seen originals who convinced 
me that the flattest surface has projections. Yes, I 
tell you that one bourgeois is to another what Raffaelle 
is to Natoire. The widow Desroches had long been 
manoeuvring that marriage for her son, in spite of an 
obstacle presented in the person of one Cochin, son of 
Matifat’s sleeping partner, a clerk in the ministry of 
Finance. To the eyes of Monsieur and Madame 
Matifat the profession of a lawyer appeared, as they 
said, to offer guarantees for the happiness of a wife. 
Desroches lent himself to his mother’s schemes in order 
to have something to fall back upon, and conducted 
himself judiciously towards the Matifats. To make 
you understand another style of happiness, it becomes 
necessary to describe to you these two merchants, male 


Nucingen and Co. : Banker 469 

and female, possessing a little garden, living in a fine 
ground-floor apartment, amusing themselves by looking 
at a jet of water no thicker than a straw, which rose 
and fell perpetually from a block of limestone in the 
middle of a basin about six feet in diameter, getting 
up early in the morning to see if the flowers had 
bloomed, with nothing to do, but horribly restless, 
dressing themselves to pass the time, bored at the 
theatres, and always on the road between Paris 
and Luzarches, where they had a country-house, at 
which I have often dined. One day — Blondet hear 
this ! — they wanted to set me going, and I related to 
them a tale which lasted from nine in the evening till 
midnight, — a gambling tale ! I had just brought on 
my twenty-ninth personage when old Matifat, who, as 
head of the house, held out till then, gave a loud snore, 
after winking and blinking for about five minutes. The 
next day they were all very complimentary about the 
conclusion of my tale. The society of these bourgeois 
consisted of Monsieur and Madame Cochin, Adolphe 
Cochin, Madame Desroches, and a little fellow named 
Popinot, a druggist in active employ, who gave them 
news of the rue des Lombards — you know him, 
Finot. Madame Matifat, who loved art, bought litho- 
graphs, lithochromos, colored drawings, — anything she 
could find that was cheap. The Sieur Matifat diverted 
himself by watching new enterprises, speculating with 


470 Nucingen and Co. : BanJcer». 

small sums, just to warm up a few emotions — Florine 
had cured him of the ways of the Regency. The 
daughter of this pair was a girl without manners, and 
having all the appearance of a lady’s maid in a good 
family ; she could play a sonata pretty well, wrote an 
English hand, knew French and spelling, — in short, a 
complete bourgeois education. She was very impatient 
to be married in order to get out of the paternal 
mansion, which she hated as an officer hates the dog- 
watch, — for the dog-watch with her lasted all day. 
Desroches, or Cochin junior, a notary, a gamekeeper, 
a fictitious English lord for a husband were all one to 
her. As she evidently knew nothing whatever of life, I 
pitied her, and tried to reveal to her the great 
mystery. Bah I the Matifats locked their door to 
me ; the bourgeois and I never can comprehend 
‘each other ! ” 

“ She afterwards married General Gouraud,” re- 
marked Finot. 

“ In forty-eight hours Godefroidde Beaudenord, ex- 
diplomatist, had fathomed the Matifats and their 
schemes,” continued Bixiou. “ Rastignac happened 
to be paying a visit to the shepherdess while Godefroid 
was making his report to Malvina. A few words 
struck his ear, and he guessed what the subject was, 
partly from the rather sour satisfaction on Malvina’s 
face. Rastignac stayed on till two in the mornihg. 


Nucingen and Co* : Bankers, 471 

and they call that man selfish ! Beaudenord departed 
when the baroness went to bed. ‘ Dear child,’ said 
Rastignac to Malvina, in a kindly paternal tone, as soon 
as they were alone, ‘ remember that a poor fellow 
heavy with sleep has drunk cup after cup of tea to 
keep awake till two in the morning in order to say to 
you solemnly ; Marry. Don’t be hard to please ; don’t 
consider feelings ; don’t think about the odious calcu- 
lations of a man who keeps one foot here and one foot 
at the Matifats’ ; don’t refiect about anything : marry / 
When a girl marries she puts herself upon a man who 
takes a pledge to place her in a position, more or less 
happy, in which her material prosperity is assured. I 
know the world ; young girls, mothers, grandmothers, 
are all hypocrites in talking sentiment about marriage. 
None of them care in their Hearts for anything but a 
good position. When a girl is well married the mother 
feels she has done a good stroke of business.’ And 
Rastignac proceeded to develop his theory of marriage, 
which, according to him, is a commerical partnership 
instituted for the support of life. ‘ I don’t ask for your 
secret,’ he said in conclusion, ‘ I know it. Men tell 
each other everything, as you women do when you 
leave us after dinner. Well, here ’s my last word : 
marry. If you don’t marry, remember that I implored 
you, here, this evening, to marry' Rastignac spoke 
in a certain tone which commanded not only attention 


472 Nucingen anct Co. : Bankers, 

but reflection. His insistence was of a nature to sur- 
prise his hearer. Malvina was so struck to the very 
quick of her mind (the spot at which Rastignac had 
aimed) that she thought about it all night, and was 
vainly searching on the morrow for the cause of that 
advice.” 

‘ ‘ I don’t see in all these yarns you are spinning any- 
thing that even remotely resembles the origin of 
Rastignac’s fortune, about which you are pledged to 
enlighten us,” cried Couture, impatiently. 

“ I ’ve just got there ! ” retorted Bixiou. “ You have 
now followed the course of all the little rivulets which 
made that forty thousand francs a year we are all so 
jealous of. Rastignac now held in his hand the 
threads of those existences — ” 

“ What ! Desroches, the Matifats, Beaudenord, the 
Aldriggers, d’Aiglemont? ” 

“ Yes, and a hundred others,” replied Bixiou. 

“Tell us how?” cried Finot. “I know many 
things, but I can’t see the answer to that enigma.” 

“ Blondet told you in bulk about Nucingen’s first 
two liquidations; now here’s the third, in detail,” 
returned Bixiou. “ At the peace of 1815, Nucingen 
comprehended what we are just beginning to compre- 
hend to-day : namely, that money is only a power when 
it is in disproportionate quantity. He was secretly 
envious of the Rothschilds. He possessed five millions, 


Nucingen and Co, : Bankers. 473 

but he wanted ten. With ten millions he knew he could 
make thirty ; with five he could only make fifteen. He 
therefore resolved on a third liquidation. This great 
man then devised to pay his creditors with fictitious 
securities, and keep their money. A conception of this 
nature does not present itself on ^ Change in quite so 
mathematical a form. Liquidation as thus practised 
consists in giving a patty for a gold-piece to a lot of 
big children who, like the little children of other days, 
prefer the patty to the coin, not being aware that with 
the coin they could buy a hundred or more patties.’* 

“What stuff you talk, Bixiou,” cried Couture. 
“ Why, nothing is more loyal than that. There ’s never 
a week, now-a-days, that patties are not offered to the 
public for gold. But the public is not forced to give 
its money ; has n’t it the right to inform itself ? ” 

“You’d rather it were forced to be a stockholder,” 
said Blondet, laughing. 

“ No,” said Finot, “ for where would shrewdness be 
then?” 

“Well done for Finot! ” cried Blondet. 

“Who gave him that clever speech?” asked 
Couture. 

“ Well,” continued Bixiou, “ Nucingen had twice had 
the happiness of giving (without intending to do so) 
patties which turned out to be worth more than he had 
pocketed. That unfortunate happiness filled him with 


474 Nucingen and Co. : BanherB. 

remorse. Such joys have ended by killing a man. He 
had now waited ten years for an occasion to make no 
such blunder, and to create securities which should only 
seem of great value — ” 

“ But,” said Couture, “ if banking is to be explained 
in that way, you make business impossible. More 
than one honest banker has, with the approval of an 
honest government, persuaded the shrewdest speculators 
to take securities which must, in a given time, 
depreciate. More than that : have n’t you frequently 
seen issued — always with the approval and support of 
governments — securities to pay the interest on certain 
funds in order to keep them floating, and then get rid 
of them? Those operations have all more or less 
analogy with Nucingen’s liquidations.” 

“ In small matters,” said Blondet, “ the method may 
seem questionable, in great ones it is the highest 
financiering. There are, as we know, arbitrary acts 
which are criminal when done by individuals to in- 
dividuals, but which are nothing at all when spread 
through a multitude, — just as a drop of prussic acid is 
harmless in a bucket of water. Kill a man, and they ’ll 
guillotine you ; but kill five hundred men for a govern- 
mental necessity of any kind, and the political crime is 
respected. If you take five thousand francs from my 
desk, you go to the galleys. But, with the condiment of 
a profit to make, cleverly put into the mouths Of a 


Nucingen and Co, : Banhen, 475 

thousand speculators, you can force them to take the 
bonds of I don’t know what insolvent republic or 
monarchy, issued, as Couture said, to pay the interest 
of the same bonds : who can complain of that? These 
are true principles of the age of gold in which we live.” 

“ Well, to return,” said Bixiou. “ The mere putting 
Dn the stage of so vast a scheme required a good many 
Polichinellos. In the first place. The firm of 
Nucingen had knowingly and designedly invested 
its five millions in an American venture the profits of 
which could not accrue until too late. It denuded 
itself intentionally ; all liquidation must say it has a 
cause. The house had possession of private funds and , 
outstanding securities to the amount of about six 
millions. Among the private funds were the three 
hundred thousand of the Baronne d’Aldrigger, Beaude* 
nord’s four hundred thousand, one million belonging to 
d’Aiglemont, three hundred thousand to Matifat, half- 
a-million to Charles Grandet, the husband of Made- 
moiselle d’Aubrion, etc. By creating an industrial 
enterprise as a stock company, with the shares of which 
he could buy out his creditors by manoeuvres more or 
less able, Nucingen might have laid himself open to 
suspicion. He was far too wary for that ; he caused the 
enterprise to be created by another man, — an enter- 
prise destined to play the part of the Mississippi in 
Law’s scheme. A peculiar characteristic of Nucingen 


476 Nucingen and Co. : Bankerz, 

is to make the ablest men of business serve his pro- 
jects without ever communicating those projects to them. 
Nucingen let drop before du Tibet : glorious and 
pyramidal idea of combining in an enterprise as share- 
holders, and constituting a capital strong enough to 
pay large dividends to the stockholders in the first 
instance. Tried for the first time at a moment when 
the capital of rinnies abounded, this combination was 
likely to produce a rise in the value of the stock, and 
consequently a profit to the banker who put them on 
the market. Remember that this was in 1826. 
Though struck with the idea, as fruitful as it was in- 
genious, du Tillet thought, very naturally, that if the 
enterprise did not succeed the blame would fall some- 
where. Accordingly he suggested putting forward a 
visible director of this commercial machine. You all 
know the secret of the founding of the firm of 
Claparon by du Tillet, — one of his finest inventions! ” 

“Yes,” said Blondet, “the responsible editor in 
finance, the tout, and the scape-goat. But in these 
days we do things better: we put up a notice, 
‘ Address the administration of, etc., etc., such a street, 
such a number,’ and there the public will find clerks in 
green caps, as jaunty as sheriff-officers.” 

“ Nucingen backed the firm of Charles Claparon & 
Co. with all his credit. A million of the Claparon 
paper might have been put on several markets fear- 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 477 

lessly. Du Tillet now proposed to put Claparon for- 
ward in this affair. Agreed. In 1825 the stockholder 
was not spoiled in the matter of industrial enterprises. 
‘‘ Margins ” were still unknown. Managers did not bind 
themselves not to sell stock beyond the value of the 
assets ; they were not forced to make deposits in the 
Bank ; they guaranteed nothing. They did not find it 
necessary to explain their limited joint-stock company 
while assuring the shareholder they were doing him a 
kindness by not asking him more than a thousand, or five 
hundred or even two hundred and fifty francs a share. 
They didn’t make known the fact that experience in 
cere publico never lasted but seven years, five years, 
two years, and thus a crash would not be long in coming. 
You see, all this was during the infancy of the art. Even 
the publicity of those tremendous advertisements had 
not been called into play to stimulate imaginations by 
asking money of all the world.” 

“ We only came to that when people refused to sub- 
scribe,” remarked Couture. 

“ Moreover, competition in such enterprises did not 
then exist,” continued Bixiou. “ The manufacturers 
of papier mdche and of printed cottons, the workers 
in zinc, the theatres, the newspapers, did n’t then rush 
at the hapless speculator like hounds at the death. 
Fine stock projects, as Couture calls them, strength- 
ened by the reports of experts, — those princes of 


478 Nucingen and Co, : Bankers. 

science, — were modestly put forth in the silence and 
shade of the Bourse. The money-lynxes performed, 
financially speaking, the calming air in the ‘ Barbiere.* 
They advanced piano^ piano^ putting forth slight 
cancans^ whispered from ear to ear about the excellence 
of the project. They never worked upon the sufferer, 
namely, the stockholder, except in his own home or at 
the Bourse, by cleverly creating rumors which ran up 
shares to the four figures.” 

“ Well, though we are all alone, and can say what 
we like, I stick to my opinion,” said Couture. 

“ You are always a goldsmith. Monsieur Josse,” said 
Finot. 

“ Finot is nothing if not classic? constitutional, and a 
fogey said Blondet. 

“Yes, I am a goldsmith,” added Couture (on whose 
account Cerizet had just been condemned in the correc- 
tional police court). “ I maintain that the new method 
is infinitely less treacherous, more honorable, less 
murderous than the old custom. Publicity allows 
reflection, examination. If some fellow gets swallowed 
up, he went into the thing with his eyes open ; nobody 
sold him a pig in a poke. Trade — ” 

“ Heavens ! here comes trade ! ” ejaculated Blondet. 

“ Trade is the gainer,” continued Couture, paying no 
attention to the interruption. “ All government which 
meddles with commerce and does not leave it free un- 


Nucingen and Co. : BanJcers, 479 

dertakes a costly folly. It must come either to the 
maximum or to monopoly. In my opinion, nothing is 
more comformable with the great principle of the 
liberty of commerce than associations of shareholders, j 
If you interfere with them, you make yourself respon- 
sible for capital and profits, which is a stupid thing to 
do. In all business, profits are in proportion to risks. 
What does it matter to the state in what way the rota- 
tory motion of money is obtained, provided it is kept in 
perpetual activity? What matter is it who is rich and 
who is poor, if there is always the same quantity of tax- 
able riches? Besides, it is more than twenty years 
since shareholding societies and limited joint-stock 
companies have existed in England, — the most com- 
mercial country in the world, where all things are 
debated, where Parliament hatches a thousand or 
twelve hundred laws in a session, and where not one 
single member of either House ever rose to speak 
against the method of — ** 

“ Curing full coffers by vegetable treatment, — 
namely, carrots^' said Bixiou. 

“Now see here!*^ said Couture, getting excited. 

“ You have ten thousand francs ; you take ten shares 
of a thousand francs each in ten different enterprises. 
You are robbed nine times (that does n’t really happen ; 
the public is stronger than the robbers ; but I ’m sup- 
posing it), and your tenth investment is successful — 


480 Nucingen and Co. : Banlcer$. 

“ Pure luck ! ’* 

“ Very likely.” 

“ It was n’t meant to succeed.” 

“Oh! go on; blague if you choose! — Well, the 
punter who is wise enough to divide his stakes in that 
way meets with a splendid investment, like the men 
who took stock in the mines of Wortschin. Messieurs, 
let us admit between ourselves that the men who 
grumble are hypocrites in despair at having had neither 
a true conception of the venture, nor the power to pro- 
claim it, nor the cleverness to speculate upon it. What 
a head it needs to start a project in these days when the 
greed of the shareholder is equal to that of the 
originator ! What a great magnetizer the man must 
be who creates a Claparon, — who invents expedients! 
Don’t you see the moral of all this? Our times will 
be no better than ourselves. We live in an age of 
greed, in which no one cares for the real value of a 
thing provided he can make a profit by passing it over 
to his neighbor; and that thing is passed to the 
neighbor because the greed of the stockholder who 
wants a profit is equal to that of the originator of the 
’ enterprise who proposed it to him.” 

“Isn’t he fine, that Couture?” said Bixiou to 
Blondet, “he is going to propose that we should 
raise a statue to him as a benefactor of humanity.” 

“ We ’ll get him to declare that the money of fools 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers. 481 

is, by divine right, the patrimony of clever men,” said 
Blondet. 

“Messieurs,” continued Couture, “we can laugh 
here in private to make up for the grave faces we 
pull elsewhere as we listen to the solemn nonsense 
which consecrates laws that are made in a hurry.” 

“ He ’s right,” said Blondet. “ What sort of times 
are these when the moment a spark of intellect flashes 
up, it is put out at once by the application of a special 
law? Legislators, nearly all of them coming from 
some petty arrondissement where they have studied 
society in newspapers, shut up the fire in the engine. 
When the boiler explodes, then comes weeping and 
gnashing of teeth! These are days when no laws 
except fiscal and penal laws are made I Do you want 
me to give you the great key-note of what is now taking 
place ? There is no longer any religion in the govern^ 
ment of the state.^* 

“ Ah ! ” said Bixiou, “ bravo, Blondet ! you have laid 
your finger on the sore of France. The exaggerated 
claims of the public treasury have deprived our land of 
more conquest than the curse of war. In the ministry of 
finance, where I did seven years of the galleys as a 
clerk, yoked with the bourgeois, there was another em- 
ploye, a man of talent, who set himself to reform the 
whole system of finances. Ha ! we ousted him finely I 
France would have been too prosperous if he’d had 


482 Nucingen and Co. : Bankers. 

his way ; she ’d have set to work to recoaquer Europe ; 
we acted for the repose of the nations. I killed that 
Rabourdin with a caricature ! ” [See Bureaucracy.] 

“ When I use the word religion.^ I don’t mean hom- 
ilies or cant, I apply the word in its high political 
sense,” continued Blondet. 

‘^Then explain what you mean,” said Finot. 

“ This explains it,” replied Blondet. “ Much has 
been said about Lyons, and the Republic cannonaded in 
the streets ; but no one has told the truth. The 
Republic seized upon the riot as a rioter lays hold 
of a gun. I ’ll tell you the truth of that history ; it is 
droll, and also profound. The commerce of Lyons is 
a commerce without soul ; for it does not manufacture a 
single yard of silk that is not ordered and payment 
thereof guaranteed. When orders stop, the workmen 
starve ; they earn only just enough to keep body and 
soul together while working; galley-slaves are better 
off than they. After the revolution of July, poverty 
in Lyons reached such a point that the canuts [name 
for the silk-weavers of Lyons] ran up the flag of 
‘ Bread or Death,’ — one of those manifestoes which 
the government ought to have studied. It was pro- 
duced by the dearness of provisions in Lyons. Now 
Lyons wants to build theatres and public buildings, 
and become a capital ; hence enormous custom-duties. 
The republicans saw their opportunity in this riot for 


Nucingen and Co, : Banhers. 483 

bread ; they organized the canuts^ who thus fought for 
two causes. Lyons had its three days’ riot ; then order 
was restored, and the canut went back to his hovel. But 
the canut ^ honest and upright until then, always return- 
ing in the fabric all the silk that was weighed to him in 
bales, now turned honesty out-of-doors, reflecting that 
the merchants were making a victim of him, and oiled 
his fingers. He returned weight for weight to be sure, 
but — he sold the silk which oil had represented in the 
balance ; and since then the commerce of French 
silks has been infested with greasy stuffs which might 
have led to the ruin of the town and one important 
branch of French business. The manufacturers and 
the government, instead of suppressing the cause of 
the evil, have, like certain physicians, driven in the 
disease by violent topical remedies. They ought to 
have sent an able man to Lyons, one of those men who 
are called unprincipled, — an Abbe Terray, for instance ; 
instead of that they saw only the military side. Con- 
sequently, these troubles made gros de Naples forty 
sous a yard. Those silks are still sold, and therefore 
the manufacturers have invented, no doubt, some means 
of getting rid of the grease. This system of manu- 
facturing from hand to mouth without foresight was 
natural in a region where Richard Lenoir, one of the 
greatest citizens France has ever had, ruined himself 
by keeping six thousand men at work when he had no 


484 Nucingen and Co. : BanTzen, 

orders, and found the ministry stupid enough to let him 
succumb to the revolution which 1814 brought about in 
the price of manufactured tissues. That ’s the only case 
of a merchant deserving a statue. Well, that man is 
to-day the object of a subscription without subscribers ; 
whereas they’ve just given a million to the children 
of Genera’ Foy! Lyons is consistent; she knows 
France, and knows it is devoid of religious feeling. 
The history of Richard Lenoir is one of those blunders 
which Fouche held to be greater than a crime.” 

“ If, in the way such schemes are presented,” said 
Couture, harking back to the point at which he had been 
interrupted, “ there should be a taint of charlatanism (a 
word now become blasting, and perched astride of the 
dividing wall between the just and the unjust), I take 
leave to ask where charlatanism begins and where it 
ends ; in short, what is charlatanism ? Do me the 
kindness to say who there is that is not a charlatan? 
Come, a little good faith — the rarest of all social 
ingredients ! Without it commerce, which consists in 
searching at night for something to sell in the morn- 
ing, would be nonsense. A seller of matches has the 
instinct of monopolizing. Grabbing and accumulating 
salable things is the one thought of the shopkeeper in 
the rue Saint-Denis called virtuous, as it is that of the 
speculator called shameless. When the shops are full, 
it is necessary to sell. In order to sell, you must stir 


Nucingen and Co, : Bankers, 485 

up customers ; hence the signs of the middle ages and 
the prospectuses of to-day. Between calling to a 
customer, and forcing him to enter and trade, I can’t 
see a hair’s difference. It may happen, it must 
happen, it often happens, that merchants get hold of 
damaged goods, for the vendor is perpetually cheat- 
ing the buyer. Well, consult the most honorable 
merchants and dealers in Paris ; they ’ll all relate to 
you, triumphantly, the cheatery they have invented to 
get rid of damaged merchandise which somebody else 
has got off upon them. The famous house of Minard 
began by sales of that nature. The rue Saint-Denis 
sells you a gown of greasy silk ; that ’s all it can do. 
The most upright of dealers will utter, with a perfectly 
innocent air, the most unprincipled of all sentiments ; 
We must get out of a bad business as best we can. 
Blondet has shown you the affairs of Lyons, with their 
causes and consequences; I am going to apply my 
theory with an anecdote. A workman in woollens, an 
ambitious fellow, saddled with children by a wife he 
loves too much, believes in the republic. He buys red 
wool, and makes those knitted caps you may have 
noticed on the heads of the gamins de Paris ; I ’ll tell 
you how they come there. The republic is vanquished. 
After Saint-Merri, the caps were unsalable. When a 
workman finds himself with a wife, ten children, and 
ten thousand red woollen caps which nobody wants^ 


486 Nucingen and Co. * Banlcers. 

as many ideas come into bis head as into that of a 
banker crammed with ten thousand shares of an enter- 
prise he distrusts and wants to get rid of. Do you 
know what that workman, that suburban Law, that 
Nucingen of knitted caps, bethinks himself of doing? 
He goes to a cafe dandy, one of those wags who drive 
the police crazy at the rural balls beyond the Barriers, 
and he asks him to play the part of an American 
captain, buying goods for the American market, and 
lodging at the Hotel Meurice, and to go to a certain 
large hatter and look at a scarlet woollen cap the man 
had, and then express a general desire for a large 
consignment. The hatter, scenting an American trade, 
rushes to the workman and secures the whole lot. You 
understand of course? — lots of caps, but no American 
captain. Now to attack commercial liberty, because of 
such little drawbacks, would be to attack justice under 
pretence of there being crimes she does not punish, or 
to accuse society of being ill-organized because of the 
evils which society begets. From caps and the rue 
Saint-Denis to shares and the Bank, draw your own 
conclusions ! ” 

“ A crown for Couture ! ” cried Blondet, twisting up 
his napkin and putting it on the speaker’s head. “I 
go farther still, gentlemen. If our present theories are 
vicious, whose fault is it? That of law, — of law 
judged by its whole system ; of legislation ; of those 


Nucingen and Co. : BanJcers. 487 

great men of the an'ondissements which the provinces 
send here stuffed full of moral ideas, — ideas indispensa- 
ble to the conduct of life unless one fights the law, but 
stupid when they hinder a man from rising to the height 
at which the legislator ought to maintain himself. Laws 
may restrict passions from this or that development, — 
play, lottery, the Ninons of the street, or what you 
please ; but they can never extirpate the passions. Kill 
those, and you kill society, which, if it does n’t beget 
them, at least develops them. Thus you shackle by 
restrictions the love for play which is latent in every 
heart, — in that of a young girl, a provincial, a diplomat 
(for the whole world wants a fortune gratis), — and the 
spirit of gambling instantly breaks out in other spheres. 
You stupidly suppress lotteries, and cooks don’t rob 
their masters any the less, they simply put their 
pilferings in the savings-bank, and the stake for them 
is two hundred francs instead of forty sous, — for shares 
in banks, industrial projects, joint-stock companies, have 
become a lottery, gambling without the green cloth, but 
with an invisible rake and a calculated drawn game. 
Gambling hells are closed, lotteries done away with, 
and here ’s France far more moral, cry the imbeciles, 
as if the punter were suppressed. People still gamble ; 
only the profits no longer go to the state, which 
supplants a tax that was paid with pleasure by an 
irritating tax ; and this without diminishing suicides, — 


488 Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 

for the new gambler does not kill himself, only his 
victim. I am not talking of capital in foreign lands, 
now lost to France, nor of the Frankfort lotteries, 
against the peddling of which the Convention decreed 
the penalty of death, and to which the procureur- 
syndics devoted themselves ! Here ’s the real gist of 
the philanthropic silliness of our legislators : The en- 
couragement given to savings-banks is a gross political 
folly. Suppose an uneasiness arises about the man- 
agement of the affairs of the state ; the government has 
created a queue waiting for money as the queue waiting 
for bread was created by the revolution. So many 
savings-banks, so many chances for riot. Three 
gamins at the corner of a street unfurling a single 
flag could start a revolution. But that danger, great 
as it may be, seems to me less to be feared than the de- 
moralization of the people. A savings-bank is the 
inoculation of the vices begotten by self-interest in 
persons whom neither education nor reason will keep 
steady to their combination, tacitly criminal. Such 
are the effects of philanthropy. A great public man 
ought to be in the abstract a scoundrel, or else com- 
munities are ill-managed. An honest public man is a 
steam-engine with feelings, or a pilot who makes love, 
while he holds the tiller — the vessel sinks. A prime 
minister who takes a hundred millions and makes 
France great and glorious, is preferable to a minister 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 


489 


buried at the expense of the state who has wrecked his 
country. Between Richelieu, Mazarin, and Potemkin, all 
three possessed in their different epochs of three hundred 
million, and the virtuous Robert Lindet, unable to make 
successful use of the assignats.^ or of the National 
domain, or of the idiots who were the real cause of 
the overthrow of Louis XVI., would you hesitate? 
Come, get on, Bixiou.” 

“I shall not explain to you,” said Bixiou, “the 
nature of the enterprise invented by the financial 
genius of Nucingen ; it would be all the more improper 
to do so because it is still going on ; its shares are 
quoted at the Bourse ; the scheme was so well-planned, 
the object of the enterprise seemed so long-lived, that 
the stock, put on the market at a nominal thousand 
francs, went down to three hundred, then up to seven 
hundred, and finally reached par after surviving the 
storms of the years '27, '3 , '32. The financial crisis of 
1827 made them shaky, the revolution of July brought 
them down ; but the scheme has some real vigor in it — 
Nucingen could n't invent an absolutely bad affair. The 
nominal capital was ten millions ; the real capital seven, 
three millions of which belonged to the founders and to 
bankers charged with the business of putting the stock 
on the market. Everything was calculated and arranged 
to make the shares appear to earn two hundred francs 
during the first six months by declaring a false dividend. 


490 


Nudngen and Co. : Bankers, 


Hence an apparent twenty per cent on ten millions. Du 
Tillet’s interest in the enterprise amounted to five hun- 
dred thousand francs. In the vocabulary of finance this 
cake is called ‘ a mouthful to gobble ’ ! Nucingen pro- 
posed to himself to create with his millions made of a 
few quires of pink paper by the aid of a lithographic 
stone, a budget of pretty little shares to dispose of, 
carefully put away in his desk. The real shares were 
to float the enterprise, buy a handsome building, and 
commence operations. Nucingen also provided him- 
self with other shares in I don’t know what mines 
of argentiferous lead, and sea-coal, and in two canals ; 
presentation shares, granted for launching those 
four enterprises into full activity, — all being well- 
officered and winning favor by means of dividends 
taken out of their capital. Nucingen could count on a 
premium if the shares went up ; but the baron 
neglected them intentionally; he left them visibly 
drifting on the surface of the market, — to attract the 
fish ! Thus, you see, he had massed his securities as 
Napoleon massed his troopers, in order to liquidate 
during the crisis which was beginning to loom up, — 
the sort of crisis which in 1826-7 revolutionized the 
European markets. If he had had his Prince of 
Wagram, he might have said, as Napoleon did on the 
heights of Santon; ‘Watch the market. On such a 
day, at such an hour, funds will make a move.’ But 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers. 491 

to whom could he confide his project? Du Tillet had 
no suspicion of his involuntary connivance. The two 
first liquidations had proved to our powerful baron the 
necessity of binding to himself some man who would 
serve him as a piston to act upon the creditors. 
Nucingen had no nephew ; and he dared not make a 
confidant. He wanted a devoted man, an intelligent 
Claparon, of good manners, a true diplomatist, a man 
worthy of being a minister, and worthy of himself, 
Nucingen. Such connections are not formed in a day, 
nor in a year. Rastignac had been by this time so 
completely coiled about by the baron that, like the 
Prince of the Peace who was loved equally by the 
King and the Queen of Spain, he thought he possessed 
in Nucingen a valuable dupe. After having laughed 
for years at a man whose real capacity was long un- 
known to him, Rastignac ended by giving a grave 
and serious devotion to Nucingen, recognizing in him 
a strength which he had hitherto believed he alone 
possessed. At the time of his first entrance into 
society Rastignac was led to despise it utterly. From 
1820 he thought, like Nucingen, that there were none 
but apparently honest men ; he regarded the world as a 
collection of all corruptions and all rascalities. If he 
admitted exceptions, he only the more condemned the 
masses. He believed in no virtue, only in circumstances 
under which a man might be virtuous. This conviction 


492 Nucingen and Co, : Bankers, 

was the work of a moment ; it came to him on the summit 
of Pere-Lachaise, the day when he buried there a poor 
old man, the father of his Delphine, dying the dupe 
of our society, the dupe of the truest sentiments, 
abandoned and left to die alone by his daughters and 
his sons-in-law. On that day Rastignac resolved to 
fool that world, and to march through it in full 
panoply of virtue, honor, and fine manners. Egotism 
armed him from head to foot. When that fellow 
discovered that Nucingen was provided with the same 
armor, he esteemed him, as in some tourney of the 
middle ages a knight armed cap-dtrpie, and mounted on 
a barb, would have esteemed an adversary horsed and 
caparisoned like himself. He grew somewhat ener- 
vated during his earlier day by the delights of Capua. 
The friendship of a woman like the Baronne de 
Nucingen is of a nature to make a man abjure egotism. 
After allowing herself to be deceived once in her 
affections by a piece of mechanism like the late de 
Marsay, Delphine must have felt, for a young man full 
of the religions of the provinces, a real attachment. 
Her tenderness reacted on Rastignac. When Nucingen 
had put upon his wife’s friend the harness that every 
manipulator puts upon the man he intends to use as a 
tool (which came to pass at the very moment when he 
was meditating his third liquidation), he confided his 
position to that man, and showed him, as an obligation 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 493 

of friendship, the role of adjutant which he must take 
and play. The baron thought it dangerous to initiate 
his conjugal collaborator into his actual plan. Rasti- 
gnac believed in some probable catastrophe, and 
Nucingen let him think that he was saving the ship. 
But when a skein has so many threads, knots will come. 
Rastignac trembled for Delphine’s fortune ; he stipu- 
lated for the independence of the baroness, and de- 
manded on her account a separation of property, — 
vowing to himself that he would thus square his own 
account with her, by tripling her means. As Eugene 
said nothing about himself, Nucingen begged him to 
accept, in case of complete success, twenty-five shares, 
of a thousand francs each, in the argentiferous lead- 
mines, which Rastignac took, so as not to affront him ! 
Nucingen had made his revelations to Rastignac the 
evening before the day on which Eugene so strenuously 
urged Malvina to marry. The sight of a hundred 
prosperous persons then coming and going about 
Paris, tranquil as to their future, such as Godefroid 
de Beaudenord, the Aldriggers, d’Aiglemont, etc., made 
Rastignac shudder, like a young general who con- 
templates an army before he leads it for the first time 
into battle. Poor little Isaure and Godefroid playing 
at love ! — were they not another Acis and another 
Galatea beneath the rock that this fat Polyphemus 
was about to hurl down upon them?** 


494 Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 

“That scamp of a Bixiou!” cried Blondet, “he 
almost has talent.” 

“Ha! so I ’mnot spinning it out too fine, now!” 
said Bixiou, enjoying his success and looking at his 
interested auditors. “ For two months past,” he 
continued, after this interruption, “ Godefroid had 
indulged himself in all the little happinesses of a man 
who is soon to be married. At such times men are 
like birds making their nests in the springtime, coming 
and going, picking up bits of straw, fiying with them 
in their beaks, and padding the domicile of their eggs. 
Isaure’s future husband had hired a little house in the 
rue de la Blanche for fifteen hundred francs a year, 
convenient, comfortable, and neither too large nor too 
small. He went there every morning to watch the 
workmen and superintend the decorations. He had 
introduced comfoH — the only good thing there is in 
England — in the shape of a calorifere which maintained 
an equable heat all over the house. The furniture was 
well chosen, neither too brilliant, nor too elegant, the 
colors cool and soft to the eye ; internal shades and 
external blinds were at all the windows ; the plate and 
the carriages were new. Beaudenord had rearranged 
the stable, the harness-room, and the coachhouse, where 
Paddy Joby Toby bustled about, frisking like a 
marmot escaped from its cage, and delighted to hear 
there would be women in the house, and especially a 


Nudngen and Co, : Bankers, 495 

lady. The passion of the man who sets up housekeep- 
ing, who chooses clocks, and rushes to his love with his 
pockets full of patterns of stuffs, and consults her about 
the furniture of the bedroom ; who comes and goes and 
trots — when he does come and go and trot — inspired 
by love, is one of those things which rejoice an honest 
heart, especially that of an upholsterer. Now as 
nothing pleases all the world more than the marriage 
of a handsome young man of twenty-five with a 
charming young woman of twenty who dances well, 
Godefroid, puzzled about making the corheille^ invited 
Rastignac and Madame de Nucingen to breakfast, in 
order to consult them on that all-important matter. He 
had the sensible idea of also inviting his cousin 
d’Aiglemont and his wife and Madame de Serizy. 
Fashionable women are fond of these little dissipations 
now and then with bachelors ; they like to breakfast 
with them.” 

“ Playing truant,” remarked Blondet. 

“After breakfast they were to go to the rue de la 
Planche and see the little house of the future couple,” 
continued Bixiou. “ Women are like ogres after raw 
flesh on such occasions ; they refresh their present 
lives with that young joy not dimmed as yet by enjoy- 
ment. The table was spread in the little salon, which, 
in honor of the burial of a bachelor’s life, was tricked 
out like the horses of a procession. The breakfast 


496 Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 

was selected in a way to offer those tempting morsels 
which women love to eat and munch and suck in the 
morning, a period of the day when their appetites are 
fearful — though they won’t admit it, thinking that 
they compromise themselves by saying, ‘ I ’m hungry/ 
‘Why have you come alone?’ said Godefroid, when 
Rastignac appeared. — ‘ Madame de Nucingen is out of 
spirits ; I ’ll tell you all about it,’ replied Rastignac, 
who seemed by his manner to be worried. — ‘ A quarrel ? ” 
cried Godefroid. — ‘ No,’ replied Rastignac, ‘ I ’ll tell 
you later.* At four o’clock the ladies had driven away 
to the Bois, and Rastignac remained behind, looking 
gloomily from the window on Joby Toby Paddy, who 
was boldly standing before the tall horse harnessed 
to the tilbury, with his arms crossed like the great 
Napoleon ; being unable to reach up and take hold of 
the horse’s bridle he kept him in subjection by his 
shrill little voice, and the horse feared Joby Toby. 
‘ Now tell me, my dear friend, what the matter is,’ 
said Godefroid to Rastignac. ‘ You are gloomy, anxious, 
and your gayety is forced. Does your half-happiness 
try your soul ? I know it is sad not to be married at 
the mayor’s office and in church to the woman we 
love.’ — ‘ Have you the courage, Beaudenord, to hear 
what I have to tell you ; and will you understand how 
attached I must be to you to commit the indiscretion 
of which I now make myself guilty ? ’ said Rastignsic, in 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 


497 


that peculiar tone which resembles the snap of a whip. 
* What is it ? ’ asked Godefroid, turning pale. — ‘ I was 
sad at your joy just now ; I have not the heart, seeing 
all those preparations, that budding happiness, to keep 
from you a fatal secret.’ — ‘ Tell it to me quickly.’ — 
‘ Swear to me that you ’ll be silent as the grave about 
it.’ — ‘I swear.’ — ^And if some friend of yours is 
interested in the secret you will not tell it to him ? ’ — 
‘ I will not.’ — ‘ Well, then, Nucingen started last night 
for Brussels; he must go into bankruptcy unless he 
can liquidate. Delphine has petitioned the civil courts 
this morning for the separation of her property. You 
can still save your fortune.’ — ‘ How ? ’ asked Godefroid, 
feeling his blood turning to ice in his veins. — ‘ Simply 
write a letter to the Baron de Nucingen and date it 
fifteen days ago, giving him an order to invest all your 
funds in some stock-company, such, for instance, as 
the Claparon association. You have fifteen days, a 
month, three months possibly, in which to sell them 
above their present price, and they are sure to rise.’ — 

‘ But d’Aiglemont. He has a million with Nucingen.’ 
— ‘ Listen to me ; I don’t know if Nucingen has 
enough stock to cover that amount; besides, 1 am 
not d’Aiglemont’s friend ; I can’t betray Nucingen’s 
secrets to him as I have done to you. If you say a 
word you must answer to me for the consequences.’ — 
Godefroid remained perfectly silent and motionless for 


498 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 


ten minutes. — ‘Do you accept? Yes, or no?* said 
Rastignac, pitilessly. Godefroid took pen and ink, 
and wrote and signed the letter which Rastignac 
dictated. ‘ My poor cousin ! * he ejaculated. — ‘ Every 
man for himself,’ said Rastignac, adding, to himself 
as he left the room, ‘ and one man trapped ! ’ While 
Rastignac was thus manoeuvring about Paris, here is 
the scene presented by the Bourse. I have a friend 
from the provinces, a stupid fool, who asked me one 
day as we passed the Bourse between four and five 
o’clock in the afternoon, why all those chattering people 
were collected there, what they could have to say to 
each other, and why they should be hanging about 
after the irrevocable settlement for the day of the 
price of the public securities had taken place. ‘ My 
friend,’ I said to him, ‘ they have eaten and they now 
dig st; during digestion they spread rumors about 
th ir neighbors, without which there ’s no commercial 
security in Paris. They are starting new schemes; 
and there are some men, Palma for example, whose 
authority over that crowd is like that of Arago at the 
Royal Academy of Sciences. He says the speculation 
is to be made, and the speculation is made ! * ” 

“ Ha ! ” cried Blondet, “ what a man that Jew is! 
a Jew with, not a university, but a universal edu- 
cation. In him universality does not preclude depth ; 
what he knows, he knows to its foundation ; his genius 


Nucmgen and Co,: BanJcers. 499 

for business is intuitive ; he is the grand referendary 
of all the lynxes who control the market in Paris ; they 
never commit themselves to an enterprise till Palma 
has examined it. He is grave, he listens, he studies, 
he reflects, and says to his questioner, who, seeing his 
attention, believes he is won, ‘ It won’t do.’ What I 
think most extraordinary is that, although he has been 
Werbrust’s partner for ten years, not the slightest 
cloud has ever arisen between them.” 

“ That can be said only of very strong or very weak 
natures,” said Couture. “ All between those two ex- 
tremes quarrel and part enemies.” 

“ You must understand,” saidBixiou, “ thatNucingen 
had, with great judgment and a most adroit hand, cast 
his little shell beneath the columns of the Bourse, 
where it burst, as intended, about four o’clock. ‘ Have 
you heard some serious news ? ’ said du Tillet to 
Werbrust, drawing him aside. ‘ Nucingen is in Brussels ; 
his wife presented a petition in court this morning for 
separation of property.’ — ‘ Are you an accomplice 
in the liquidation ? ’ asked Werbrust, smiling. — ‘ Come, 
come, no nonsense, Werbrust,’ said du Tillet ; ‘ you know 
men who have his paper ; listen to me ; you and 
I could do a stroke of business here. The shares of 
our new company are earning twenty per cent ; they ’ll 
earn twenty-five by the end of the quarter, — you know 
why ; they are issuing a magnificent dividend.' — ‘ Ha, 


500 Nucingen and Co, : Banhen, 

slyboots ! * said Werbrust, ‘ go your ways ; you *re a 
devil with long sharp claws, but you are sticking them 
into butter now/ — ‘ But just let me tell you, or we 
sha’n’t have time to work it round. The idea came into 
my head when I heard the news, and I positively did 
see Madame de Nucingen in tears; she’s frightened 
about her fortune.’ — ‘Poor thing!’ said Werbrust, 
ironically. ‘ Well ? ’ he added interrogatively. — ‘ W ell, ' 
continued du Tillet, ‘ I have in my hands a thousand 
shares of a thousand francs each which Nucingen gave 
me to dispose of — you understand? ’ — ‘ Yes.’ — ‘ Let 
us buy up a million of the Nucingen paper at ten, twenty, 
twenty-five per cent discount, and we shall get a fine 
premium on that million ; we shall be debtors and 
creditors both, and the mixture will work well I But 
we shall have to act cautiously, or the holders might 
think we were working the matter round in Nucingen’s 
interest.’ — Werbrust understood the trick at once and 
shook du Tillet’s hand with the look of a woman who 
cheats her friend. ‘Well, have you heard the news?* 
said Martin Falleix, coining up to them ; ‘ the house of 
Nucingen suspends.’ — ‘ Look here! ’ said Werbrust; 

‘ don’t spread that about. Let those who hold his 
paper make the best bargain they can for themselves.’ — 

‘ Do you know the cause of the disaster ? ’ asked 
Claparon, joining them. — ‘ know nothing about it/ 
replied du Tillet. ‘ There won’t be the slightest disaster ; 


Nucingen and Co, : Bankers. 501 

the liabilities will be paid in full. Nucingen will begin 
again, and all the funds he wants he can have from me. 
I know the cause of this suspension. He put his 
capital into Mexican investments which return him 
metals, gold, church bells, sacramental silver, all the 
relics of Spanish monarchy in America. The arrival 
of these returns has been delayed ; the good baron is 
embarrassed, that’s all.’ — ‘Yes, that’s all,’ said 
Werbrust. ‘ I ’ll take his paper at twenty per cent dis- 
count.’ The news thereupon circulated with the rapidity 
of fire in a pile of straw. The most contradictory 
things were told. But there was such confidence in the 
house of Nucingen, owing to the outcome of the two 
preceding liquidations, that everybody kept its paper. 
‘ Palma must lend us a helping hand,’ said Werbrust. 
Palma was the oracle of the Kellers, who were stuffed 
full of the Nucingen paper. One word of alarm said 
by him would suffice. Werbrust induced him to sound 
the tocsin.” 

“Just what I told you,” said Blondet. “That Jew 
controls all Paris.” 

“The next day,” continued Bixiou, “ fear reigned 
at the Bourse. The Kellers, advised by Palma, sold the 
Nucingen paper at ten per cent discount, and gave the 
cue on ’change ; for they were known to be very shrewd. 
Taillefer on that parted with three hundred thousand 
at twenty per cent loss, Martin FaUeix two hundred 


502 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers. 


thousand at fifteen. Gigonnet now guessed the game. 
He worked up the panic in order to buy Nucingen 
paper and make two or three per cent by selling it to 
Werbrust. He met, in a corner of the Bourse, poor 
Matifat, who had three hundred thousand francs with 
Nucingen. The retired druggist, pale and haggard, 
could not see the terrible Gigonnet, the money-lender 
of his old quarter, coming toward him as if to saw him 
in two, without trembling. ‘ Things are going badly ; 
there ’s a crisis impending ; Nucingen liquidates ! 
But that won’t matter to you, pere Matifat, you are 
out of business.’ — ‘You are wrong there, Gigonnet; 
I ’m in for three hundred thousand francs, with which 
I meant to operate in Spanish consols.’ — ‘ Then 
you ’ve saved them,’ replied Gigonnet. ‘ Those Spanish 
securities are worth nothing, whereas I ’ll give you 
something for your account with Nucingen, say fifty 
per cent.’ — ‘I’d rather wait for the liquidation,* 
replied Matifat ; ‘ no banker has ever paid less than 
fifty per cent in settlement. Ah! if it were only a 
matter of ten per cent loss,’ sighed the druggist. — 
‘ Well, will you say fifteen? ” said Gigonnet. — ‘ You 
seem in rather a hurry,’ said Matifat. — ‘ Good-evening 
to you ! ’ responded Gigonnet. — ‘You may have them 
at twelve.’ — ‘ So be it,’ said the usurer. Two millions 
were bought in that evening by du Tillet and balanced 
by Nucingeu’s stock on account of these three chance 


Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 503 

associates who obtained their premium on the following 
day. The poor, pretty old shepherdess, the Baronne 
d’Aldrigger was breakfasting with her two daughters 
and Godefroid when Rastignac arrived, with a dip- 
lomatic air to have a talk on the financial crisis. 
The Baron de Nucingen had a warm affection for the 
Aldrigger family ; he had arranged, in case of any 
misfortune, to cover the baroness’s account by the very 
best securities in his hands, namely, stock in some 
argentiferous lead mines ; but, for her greater security, 
she ought to send him a letter asking him to thus 
employ her funds. ‘ Poor, dear Nucingen ! what has 
happened to him ? ’ asked the baroness. — ‘ He is in 
Belgium ; his wife petitions for a separation of prop- 
erty ; but he has gone to seek help from the Belgian 
bankers.’ — ‘ Good heavens ! how that reminds me of 
my poor husband ! Dear Monsieur de Rastignac, this 
must distress you very much — you so attached to that 
family.’ — ^Provided all those involved are secured, 
Nucingen’s friends will gain some profit later; he’ll 
pull through this affair, for he is a very able man.’ — 
‘ And a very honest one,* added the baroness. By the 
end of the month, the liquidation of the Nucingen 
debts was accomplished, without other proceedings 
than the letters by which each person having an 
account with the firm requested the investment of his 
or her money in certain specified securities, and with- 


604 Nucingen and Co. : Bankers, 

out other formalities on the part of the banking-houses 
than the exchange of the Nucingen paper for the 
stocks preferred. While du Tillet, Werbrust, Claparon, 
Gigonnet, and a few others, who thought themselves 
clever, bought Nucingen’s paper in foreign markets for 
one per cent premium (for they still made a profit on 
exchanging it for rising stocks), the stir in the Paris 
market was all the greater because no one now had 
anything to fear; Nucingen was talked over, examined, 
judged, and calumniated : what luxury ! what mad 
enterprises! when a man conducts himself in that 
way he must expect to be ruined, etc. But all of 
a sudden, in the midst of this general chorus, a few 
persons were very much amazed to receive letters 
from Geneva, Bale, Milan, Naples, Genoa, Marseilles, 
London, in which their correspondents announced, 
without apparent surprise, that they were getting one 
per cent premium on paper of the house of Nucin- 
gen, the notification of whose failure their Paris cor- 
respondents had sent to them. ‘ Something is going 
on,^ said the lynxes. The courts had decreed the 
separation of property between Nucingen and his 
wife. Presently the matter grew still more compli- 
cated. The newspapers announced the return of the 
Baron de Nucingen, who had gone to Belgium to 
consult with a celebrated engineer about working 
certain coal-mines, then lying idle in the forest of 


Nucingen and Co, : Bankers, 505 

Bossut. The baron reappeared at the Bourse, without 
even taking the trouble to deny the calumnies circu- 
lated about his house ; he disdained to defend himself 
through the newspapers, and he bought a fine domain 
for which he paid two millions near the gates of Paris. 
Six weeks later, the newspapers of Bordeaux an- 
nounced the arrival in the roadstead of two vessels 
laden with metals consigned to the house of Nucingen, 
and valued at seven millions. Palma, Werbrust, and 
du Tillet understood that the trick was played; but 
they were the only ones who comprehended it. These 
men, learned in such matters, studied the getting up of 
this dramatic affair, this financial jugglery ; they saw it 
had been planned and prepared through many months, 
and they voted Nucingen to be the greatest of European 
financiers. Rastignac never really understood the 
affair, but he pocketed four hundred thousand francs 
which Nucingen had let him shear from Parisian 
sheep, with which he dowered and married his sisters. 
D’Aiglemont, warned by his cousin Beaudenord, came 
to Rastignac and implored him to accept ten per cent 
of his million if he enabled him to invest that million in 
shares of a canal — which is not yet made, for Nucingen 
has so deceived the government in that affair that the 
grantees of the canal have an interest in not finish- 
ing it. Charles Grandet entreated Rastignac, on the 
ground of his intimacy with the Nucingens to get his 


506 Nucingen and Co. : Bankers* 

money in the firm exchanged for stocks. In short, 
Rastignac played for ten days the role of Law, implored 
by pretty duchesses to give them shares in his Mississippi 
schemes, and to-day that fellow has forty thousand 
francs a year, the origin of which lies in those shares of 
an argentiferous lead mine. Now you know the secret 
of Rastignac’s fortune.’’ 

“ But,” said Finot, “ if everybody won, who lost?” 

“ Conclusion,” resumed Bixiou. “ Allured by the 
the pseudo-dividend which they received a few months 
after the exchange of their money for stocks, the 
Marquis d’Aiglemont and Beaudenord held on to those 
securities (I tell you of those two only, who may stand 
for all the rest). They had three per cent more for their 
capital, and they sang the praises of Nucingen and de- 
fended him wherever he was attacked. On the occasion 
of Beaudenord’s marriage the Nucingens gave a ball the 
magnificence of which surpassed all expectations. Del- 
phine presented the bride with a charming set of rubies. 
Isaure danced, not as a young girl, but as a happy wife. 
The little baroness was more of an Alpine shepherdess 
than ever. Malvina, the type of Avez-vous vudans Bar~ 
celone ? listened to du Tibet, in the course of a quadrille, 
advising her harshly to be Madame Desroches. Desroches 
himself, egged on by Nucingen and Rastignac, made 
advances ; but, at the first words said to him about 
shares in the lead-mines constituting the dowry, he 


Nuctngen and Co. : Bankers. 507 

broke off the negotiation and returned to the Matifats. 
There the lawyer found those cursed canal shares, 
which Gigonnet had palmed off upon Matifat for his 
money. Behold Desroches encountering Nucingen’s 
rake on both the dots he had aimed for ! The final 
catastrophe was, not long in coming. The Claparon 
company did too heavy a business, it became involved, 
congested ; it passed its dividend, although its opera- 
tions were thought excellent. This mishap coincided 
with political turmoils. In 1829 Claparon became known 
as the man of straw between two colossi and he rolled 
from his pedestal to earth. From twelve hundred and 
fifty francs, the stock toppled down to four hundred, 
although it was worth intrinsically six hundred. 
Nucingen, who knew its real value, then bought it 
back. Madame d’Aldrigger had already sold her 
mining shares, which brought her nothing, and Gode- 
froid sold those of his wife for the same reason. Like 
the baroness, Beaudenord had exchanged his mining 
stocks for shares in the Claparon company. Their 
debts forced them both to sell at the lowest point. 
Out of what had once been to them seven hundred 
thousand francs they saved but two hundred and thirty 
thousand. With that they paid their debts and invested 
the remnant in the three per cents at 75. Godefroid, 
that once happy bachelor without a care in the world, 
who had only to take life easily, found himself burdened 


508 Nucingen and Co, : ^ angers. 

with a wife as stupid as an owl, incapable of bear- 
ing trouble, who in six months had changed from a 
beloved object to a frivolous being ; burdened also with 
a penniless mother-in-law who still dreams of dress. 
The two families live together to exist at all. Godefroid 
was forced to look about him for influence to obtain 
even a place as clerk in the ministry of Foreign affairs 
on a salary of fifteen hundred francs. His friends, 
where were they? Travelling. His relations? Sur- 
prised, distressed, full of promises: “Oh, yes, my 
dear fellow, count on me ! Poor lad ! ” — and forgotten 
in ten minutes ! Beaudenord owed the place finally to 
Nucingen and Vandenesse. These poor people, so 
worthy and so unfortunate, are living to-day on a 
fourth-fioor lodging in the rue du Mont-Thabor. The 
granddaughter-pearl of the Adolphuses, Malvina, pos- 
sesses not one penny; she gives music-lessons so as 
not to be a burden on her brother-in-law. Dark, tall, 
thin, and withered, she resembles a mummy escaped 
from Passalacqua and wandering on foot about Paris. 
In 1833 Beaudenord lost his situation, and his wife gave 
him a fourth child. Eight masters and two servants 
(Wirth and his wife) ! money : eight thousand francs 
a year ! The mines are now paying such large dividends 
that what was once a share of a thousand francs now 
pays that sum in interest. Rastignac and Madame de 
Nucingen bought the shares sold by Godefroid and the 


Nucingen and Co. .* Bankers. 509 

baroness. Nucingen was created peer of France after 
the revolution of July, and grand officer of the Legion 
of honor. Though he has not liquidated again, they say 
his fortune now amounts to eighteen millions. Relying 
on the July ordinances, he sold all his funds and 
boldly bought Three per cents when they were down 
to 45. This he made the cha e^u believe was pure 
devotion. It was about that time, in concert with du 
Tillet, that he swallowed up the three millions of that 
great scoundrel Philippe Bridau. Lat<>ly, as he was 
passing through the rue de Rivoli on his way to the 
Bois, the baron caught sig' t a der t’ e arcades of the 
Baronne d’Aldrigger. The ILJe o d creature had a 
green bonnet lined with pink, a flowered gown, and a 
mantilla ; in short, she was more of an Alpine shep- 
herdess than ever, for she unders ood tho causes of her 
poverty no better than the causes of her former 
opulence. She was leaning on the arm of poor 
Malvina, that model of heroic devotion, who might 
have been taken for the old mother, while the baroness 
had the air of a young girl. Wirth was following them 
with an umbrella. ‘ There go some people,' said 
Nucingen to Monsieur Cointet, the minister of Finance, 
with whom he was driving, ‘ whose fortune I found 
it impossible to make. The gust of “ principles ” being 
now over, could n’t you replace that poor Beaudenord 
iu your office?' Godefroid accordingly returned to 


510 Nucingen and Co. : Banlcers. 

the ministry of Finance, thanks to Nucingen, whom the 
Aldriggers one and all laud and magnify as a hero of 
friendship; and he never fails to invite the little 
shepherdess and her daughters to his balls. It is 
impossible for any one on this earth to show how 
that man has, three times and without breaking the 
law, robbed the public enriched by him and in spite 
of him. No one can reproach him. Whoever would 
venture to say that the highest banking is often 
cutthroat would be held guilty of shameful calumny. 
If stocks rise and fall, if the value of securities in- 
creases or diminishes, such flux and reflux is produced 
by a mutual atmospheric movement analogous to that 
of the tides and the moon; and the great Arago should 
be called upon to give a scientiflc theory on this im- 
portant phenomenon. One monetary truth is deducible 
from all this, which I have never yet seen written.” 

“ What is that? ” 

“ The debtor is stronger than the creditor.” 

“For my part,” said Blondet, “I see in what we 
have just said and heard the paraphrase of a saying 
of Montesquieu, in which he concentrated his ‘ Spirit of 
the Laws.’” 

“ Repeat it,” said Finot. 

“ ‘ The laws are spiders’ webs, through which the big 
flies pass while the little flies are caught.’ ” 

“ What ’s the remedy? what do you want? ” asked 
Finot. 


Nucmgen and Co. : BanherB, 611 

An absolute government ; the only one under 
which the enterprises of intelligence against law can 
be repressed ! Yes, arbitrary power protects the peo- 
ples by coming to the support of the law, for the right 
of pardon has no reverse ; the king who could pardon 
a fraudulent bankrupt would return nothing ^o the 
ruined victim. Legality is killing modern society.’^ 
“Make the electors comprehend that if you an!*' 
said Bixiou. 

“ There’s some one else charged with that duty.^’ 
“Who?” 

“Time. As the Bishop o Leon said, ‘Liberty is 
ancient, but monarchy is eternal* all nations sane of 
mind will return *to it, under one form or another ’ ” 
“Bless me! ” exclaimed Finot, hearing us leave our 
dining-room, “ there was somebody near us ! ” 

“There’s always somebody near us,” responded 
Bixiou, who may have been slightly tipsy. 


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ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN. 


TO l£on gozlan, 

Ab jl Testimony to Good Literary Brotherhood. 


THE SALON OP MADEMOISELLE DES TOUCHES. 

In Parisian society you will nearly always find two 
distinct evenings in the balls and routs. First, the 
official evening, at which all the invited guests are 
present, — a gay world bored. Each person poses 
for his or her neighbor. The majority of the young 
women have come there to meet one person only. 
When each is satisfied that she is the handsomest 
woman present for that person, and that his opinion is 
probably shared by some others, she is ready to leave, 
after the exchange of a few insignificant speeches, 
such as: “Shall you go early to La Crampade?” — 
“ Madame de Portendu^re sang very well, I think.”— 


616 Another Study of Woman. 

“ Who is that little woman over there, covered with 
diamonds?” Or, perhaps, after casting about a few 
epigrams, which give momentary pleasure and lasting 
wounds, the groups begin to thin, mere acquaintances 
take leave, and then the mistress of the house stops 
her personal friends, and a few artists and lively 
fellows, saying, in a whisper: “Don’t go, we shall 
have supper presently.” 

Then the company gathers in a little salon. The 
second, the real evening, begins, — an evening like 
those of the old regime, when everybody understands 
what is talked about, conversation is general, and 
each person present is expected to show his or her wit 
and to contribute to the general amusement. The scene 
has changed ; frank laughter succeeds to the stiff arti- 
ficial air which dulls in society the prettiest faces. In 
short, pleasure begins as the rout ends. The rout, 
that cold review of luxury, the march-past of self- 
loves in full costume, is one of those English inven- 
tions which tend to turn all other nations into mere 
machines. England seems desirous that all the world 
should be as much and as often bored as herself. 
This second party succeeding the first is therefore 
in some French houses a lively protest of the former 
spirits of our joyous land. But, unfortunately, few 
houses thus protest; and the reason is plain: if sup- 
pers are no longer in vogue it is because at no time« 


Another Study of Woman, 


617 


under any regime, were there ever so few persons in 
France with settled positions, surroundings, fortunes, 
families, and name as under the reign of Louis 
Philippe, in which the Revolution was begun again 
legally. All the world is on the march toward some 
end, or it is trotting after wealth. Time has become 
the most costly of all provisions; no one can allow 
himself the monstrous prodigality of coming home 
late and sleeping late the next morning. The second 
party is therefore only found among women rich 
enough to really entertain ; and since July, 1830, such 
women may be counted on the fingers. 

In spite of the mute opposition of the faubourg 
Saint-Germain, two or three women, among them the 
Marquise d’Espard and Mademoiselle des Touches, 
refused to renounce the influence they had held up to 
that time over Paris, and did not close their salons. 

The salon of Mademoiselle des Touches, which was 
very celebrated in Paris, was the last asylum of the 
true French wit of other days, with its hidden pro- 
fundity, its thousand casuistries, and its exquisite 
politeness. There you might observe the grace of 
manner which underlay the conventions of politeness; 
the easy flow of conversation in spite of the natural 
reserve of well-bred persons; and above all, gener- 
osity and largeness of ideas. There, no one dreamed 
of reserving his thought for a drama ; no one saw a 


518 


Another Study of Woman. 


book to be made out of a narrative. In short, the 
hideous skeleton of literature in want did not rise and 
show itself apropos of some piquant sally or some 
interesting topic. 

During the evening of which we shall now speak, 
chance had collected in the salon of Mademoiselle des 
Touches a number of persons whose undeniable merits 
had won for them European reputations. This is not 
a flattery addressed to France, for several foreigners 
were among us. The men who chiefly shone were 
by no means the most distinguished. Ingenious 
repartees, shrewd observations, capital satires, de- 
scriptions given with brilliant clearness, sparkled and 
flowed without preparation, lavished themselves with- 
out reserve as without assumption, and were delight- 
fully felt and delicately enjoyed. The men of the 
world were particularly noticeable for a grace, a 
warmth of fancy that was wholly artistic. You will 
meet elsewhere in Europe elegant manners, cordiality, 
good-fellowship and knowledge, but in Paris only, in 
this salon and those I have just mentioned, will be 
found in perfection that particular form of mind which 
gives to these social qualities an agreeable and varied 
harmony, a fluvial motion by which this wealth of 
thoughts, of formulas, of narratives, of history itself, 
winds easily along. 

Paris, the capital of taste, alone knows the science 


519 


Another Study of Woman, 

which changes conversation to a joust in which the 
quality of each mind is condensed into a flash, where 
each tilter says his word and casts his experience into 
it, where all are amused, refreshed, and have their 
faculties exercised. There alone you can exchange 
ideas ; there you do not carry, like the dolphin in the 
fable, a monkey on your back ; there you are under- 
stood, and you run no risk of staking your gold against 
false coin or copper. There, in short, talk, light and 
deep, floats, undulates, and turns, changing aspect 
and color at every sentence; there, too, secrets are 
well betrayed. Lively criticism and pithy narrative 
lead each other on. Eyes are listening as well as 
ears; gestures put questions to which faces reply. 
There, all is, in a word, thought and wit. Never had 
the oral phenomenon, which, if well studied and 
well-managed, makes the power of the orator and the 
narrator, so completely bewitched me. 

I was not the only one sensitive to these influences, 
and we passed a delightful evening. The conversa- 
tion finally turned to narrative, and led, in its rapid 
course, to curious confidences, striking portraits, and 
a multitude of fancies, which render that delight- 
ful improvisation altogether untransferable to paper. 
But, by leaving to a few things their tartness, their 
abrupt naturalness, their sophistical sinuosities, per- 
haps you will understand the charm of a true French 


520 


Another Study of Woman, 


soiree,, taken at the moment when the pleasantest 
familiarity has made every one forget his or her self- 
interests, self-loves, or, if you prefer so to call them, 
pretensions. 

About two in the morning, when supper was over, 
none but a few intimates, all tried friends, tried by 
an intercourse of fifteen years, and certain men of 
the world, well-bred and gifted with taste, remained 
around the table. A tone of absolute equality reigned 
among them; and yet there was no one present who 
did not feel proud of being himself. 

Mademoiselle des Touches always obliged her guests 
to remain at table until they took their leave, having 
many times remarked the total change that takes place 
in the minds of those present by removal to another 
room. Between a dining-room and a salon, the charm 
snaps. According to Sterne, the ideas of an author 
are different after he has shaved from what they were 
before. If Sterne is right, we may boldly aver that 
the inclinations of persons still seated round a dinner- 
table are not those of the same persons when returned 
to the salon. The atmosphere is more heady, the eye 
is no longer enlivened by the brilliant disorder of the 
dessert; we have lost the benefits of that softening of 
the spirit, that kindliness and good-will which per- 
vaded our being in the pleasant condition of thoee 
who have well eaten, and are sitting at their ease on 


Another Study of Woman. 521 

chairs as comfortable as they make them in these 
days. Perhaps we talk more willingly in presence of 
the dessert and in company with choice wines, during 
the delightful moments when we rest our elbow on the 
table and lean our head on our hand. Certain it is 
that people not only like to talk at such times, but they 
like to listen. Digestion, nearly always attentive, is, 
according to characters, either talkative or silent. 
Each person present then follows his bent. 

This preamble was needed to introduce you to the 
charms of a confidential narrative in which a cele- 
brated man, since dead, depicted the innocent Jesuit- 
ism of a woman with the crafty shrewdness of a man 
who has seen many things, — a quality which makes 
public men the most delightful narrators when, like 
Talleyrand and Metternich, they deign to tell a tale. 

De Marsay, who had now been prime minister for 
more than six months, had already given proofs of 
superior capacity. Though friends who had long 
known him were not surprised to see him display both 
the talents and aptitudes of a statesman, they were 
still asking themselves whether he felt within him- 
self a great political strength, or whether he had 
simply developed in the heat of circumstances. Thi., 
question had just been put to him, with an evidently 
philosophical intention, by a man of intellect and 
observation whom he had made a prefect, — a man 


522 


Another Study of Woman, 


who was long a journalist, and who admired the prime 
minister without mingling his admiration with that 
touch of sour criticism by which, in Paris, one supe- 
rior man excuses himself for admiring another. 

“ Has there been in your earlier life any fact, 
thought, or desire, which made you foresee your voca- 
tion?” asked Emile Blondet; “for we all have, like 
Newton, our particular apple which falls, and takes 
us to the sphere in which our faculties can develop.” 

“Yes,” replied de Marsay, “and I ’ll tell you about 
it.” 

Pretty women, political dandies, artists, old men, 
de Marsay’ s intimates, settled themselves comforta- 
bly, each in his own way, and looked at the prime 
minister. Is it necessary to say that the servants had 
left the dining-room, that the doors were closed and 
the portieres drawn? The silence which now fell was 
so deep that the murmur of the coachmen’s voices and 
the stamping of the horses impatient for their stable 
came up from the courtyard. 

“ A statesman, my friends, exists through one qual- 
ity only,” said the minister, playing with his pearl- 
handled and gold dessert-knife. “To know how at 
all moments to be master of himself ; to be able, on 
all occasions, to meet the failure of events, however 
unexpected and fortuitous it may be; in short, to 
have, in his inner self, a cold, detached being, which 


Another Study of Woman, 523 

looks on as a spectator at all the movements of our 
life, our passions, our sentiments, and which inspires 
us, apropos of all things, with the decision of a species 
of ready-reckoner.” 

“You are explaining to us why statesmen are so 
rare in France,” said old Lord Dudley. 

“ From a sentimental point of view it is certainly 
horrible,” said the minister, “and therefore when 
this phenomenon appears in a young man (Richelieu, 
warned of Concini’s danger by a letter over-night, 
slept till mid-day, when he knew his benefactor would 
be killed at ten o’clock), that young man, be he 
Pitt, or Napoleon if you like, is a monstrosity. I 
became that monster very early in life, thanks to a 
woman.” 

“ I thought,” said Madame de Montcornet (Virginie 
Blondet), smiling, “ that we unmade more statesmen 
than we make.” 

“ The monster of whom I speak is only a monster 
inasmuch as he resists your sex,” said the narrator, 
with an ironical bow. 

“If this tale relates to a love-affair,” said the 
Baronne de Nucingen, “ I request that it may not be 
interrupted by reflections.” 

“Reflection being so contrary to love,” remarked 
Joseph Bridau. 

“ I was nineteen years of age,” resumed de Marsay; 


524 


Another Study of Woman. 


“the Restoration was becoming re-established; my 
oldest friends know how impetuous and fiery I then was* 
I was in love for the first time, and I may, at this late 
day, be allowed to say that I was one of the hand- 
somest young men in Paris. I had youth and beauty, 
two advantages due to chance, of which we are as 
proud as if we had won them. I say nothing about 
the rest. Like all young men, I was in love with a 
woman about six years older than myself. Only one 
of you,’* he said, looking round the table, “ will guess 
her name or recognize her. Ronquerolles was the 
.only one in those days who fathomed my secret, and 
he kept it carefully. I might fear his smile, but he 
seems to be gone,” said the minister, again looking 
about him. 

“He would not stay to supper,” said his sister, 
Madame de Serizy. 

“ For six months possessed by this love, but inca- 
pable of suspecting that it mastered me,” continued 
the minister, “ I gave myself up to that adorable 
worship which is the triumph and the fragile happiness 
of youth. I treasured her glove, I drank infusions of 
the flowers she had worn, I rose from my bed to go 
and stand beneath her windows. All my blood rushed 
to my heart as I breathed the perfume that she pre- 
ferred. I was then a thousand leagues from suspect- 
ing that women are furnaces above and marble below.” 


Another Study of Woman, 525 

“Oh, spare us those horrible sentiments,” said 
Madame de Camps, laughing. 

“ I would then have blasted with contempt the philos- 
opher who published to the world that terrible opin- 
ion, so profoundly true,” replied de Marsay. “You 
are all too wise and witty to need me to say more on 
that point; but perhaps the rest that I have to tell 
may recall to you your own follies. Well, — a great 
lady, if ever there was one, a widow without children 
(oh! she had every advantage), my idol went so far as 
to shut herself up to mark my handkerchiefs with her 
own hair ; in short, she responded to my follies with 
follies of her own. How is it possible not to believe 
in a passion when it is guaranteed by folly? We had 
put, each of us, all our wits into concealing so com- 
plete and glorious a love from the eyes of the world ; 
and we succeeded. Of her, 1 shall tell you nothing; 
perfect in those days, she was considered until quite 
recently one of the handsomest women in Paris*, at 
the time of which I speak men would have risked 
death to obtain her favor. She was left in a satis- 
factory condition as to fortune, for a woman who loved 
and was beloved; but the Restoration, to which she 
was indebted for higher honors, made her wealth 
insufficient to meet the requirements of her name and 
rank. As for me, I had the self-conceit that conceives 
no suspicions. Although my natural jealousy had in 


526 


Another Study of Woman. 


those days a hundred-and-twenty-Othello power, that 
terrible sentiment slumbered in my breast like gold in 
its nugget. I would have made my valet flog me had 
I felt the baseness to doubt the purity and fidelity of 
that angel, so frail, so strong, so fair, so naive, so 
pure, so candid, whose blue eyes let me penetrate 
with adorable submission to the bottom of her heart. 
Never the least hesitation in pose, or look, or word; 
always white and fresh and tender to her beloved 
as the eastern lily of the Song cf Songs. Ah, my 
friends ! ” '~ricd the minister, sorrowfully, becoming 
for the moment a young man, “We must knock our 
heads very hard against the marble to dispel that 
poesy.” 

This cry of nature, which found its echo among the 
guests, piqued their curiosity, already so cleverly 
excited. 

“Every morning, mounted on that splendid Sul- 
tan you sent me from England,” he said to Lord 
Dudley, “ I rode past her caliche and read my orders 
for the day in her bouquet, prepared in case we were 
unable to exchange a few words. Though we saw 
each other nearly every evening in society, and she 
wrote to me every day, we had invented, in order to 
deceive the world and baffle observation, a system of 
behavior. Not to look at each other, to avoid ever 
being together, to speak slightingly of each other’s 


Another Study of Woman, 


527 


qualities, all those well-worn manoeuvres were of little 
value compared with our device of a mutual false 
devotion to an indifferent person, and an air of indif- 
ference to the true idol. If two lovers will play that 
game they can always dupe society, but they must be 
very sure of each other. Her substitute was a man 
high in court favour, cold, devout, whom she did not 
receive in her own house. Our comedy was only 
played for the profit of fools in salons. The question 
of marriage had not been mooted between us; six 
years* difference in our ages might cause her to reflect. 
She knew nothing of the amount of my fortune, which, 
on principle, I have always concealed. As for me, 
charmed by her mind, her manners, the extent of her 
information and her knowledge of the world, I would 
fain have married her without reflection. And yet 
her reserve pleased me. Had she been the first to 
speak to me of marriage, I might have found some- 
thing vulgar in that accomplished soul. Six full and 
perfect months! a diamond of the purest water! That 
was my allowance of love in this low world. One 
morning, being attacked by one of those bone-fevers 
which begin a severe cold, I wrote her a note putting 
off the happiness of a meeting for another day. No 
sooner was the letter gone than I regretted it. ‘ She 
certainly will not believe that I am ill,* I said to 
myself ; for she was fond of seeming jealous and sus- 


628 


Another Study of Woman. 


picious. When jealousy is real,” said de Marsay, 
interrupting himself, “it is the evident sign of a 
single-minded love.” 

“ Why? ” asked the Princesse de Cadignan, eagerly. 

“A true and single-minded love,” said de Marsay, 
“produces a sort of bodily apathy in harmony with 
the contemplation into which the person falls. The 
mind then complicates all things ; it works upon itself, 
it sets up fantasies in place of realities, which only 
torture it; but this jealousy is as fascinating as It is 
embarrassing.” 

A foreign minister smiled, recognizing by the light 
of memory the truth of this remark. 

“ Besides, I said to myself, why lose a happy 
day?” continued de Marsay, resuming his narrative. 
“ Was n’t it better to go, ill as I was ? for, if she thought 
me ill I believed her capable of coming to see me and 
so compromising herself. I made an effort; I wrote a 
second letter, and as my confidential man was not on 
hand, I took it myself. The river lay between us ; I 
had all Paris to cross; when I came within suitable 
distance of her house I called a porter and told him to 
deliver the letter immediately ; then the fine idea came 
into my head of driving past the house in a hackney- 
coach to see if the letter was delivered promptly. 
Just as I passed in front of it, about two o’clock in 
the afternoon, the great gate opened to admit the 


Another Study of Woman. 


629 


carriage of — whom do you suppose? The substi- 
tute! It is fifteen years since that happened; well! 
as I tell you of it, this exhausted orator, this minister 
dried to the core by contact with public business, still 
feels the boiling of something in his heart and a fire 
in his diaphragm. At the end of an hour I passed 
again, — the carriage was still in the courtyard; my 
note had doubtless not been taken up to her. At last, 
at half-past three o’clock, the carriage drove away 
and I was able to study the face of my rival. He 
was grave, he did not smile; but he was certainly in 
love, and no doubt some plan was in the wind. At the 
appointed hour I kept my tryst ; the queen of my soul 
was calm and serene. Here, I must tell you that I 
have always thought Othello not only stupid, but guilty 
of very bad taste. No man but one who was half a 
negro would have behaved as he did. Shakespeare 
felt that when he called his play the Moor of Venice. 
The mere sight of the beloved woman has something 
so healing to the heart, that it dissipates all vexa- 
tions, doubts, sorrows; my wrath subsided and I 
smiled again. This at my present age, would have 
been horribly dissimulating, but then it was simply 
the result of my youth and love. My jealousy thus 
buried, I had power to observe. I was visibly ill; the 
horrible doubts which had tortured me increased the 
appearance of illness, and she showed me the most 


530 Another Study of Woman, 

tender solicitude. I found occasion however to slip 
in the words: ‘ Had you any visitor this morning?* 
explaining that I had wondered how she would amuse 
herself after receiving my first note. 

“ ‘I? * she said, ‘ how could I think of any amuse- 
ment after hearing of your illness? Until your second 
note came I was planning how to go to j^ou.' 

“ ‘ Then you were quite alone? * 

“ ‘ Quite,* she answered, looking at me with so per- 
fect an expression of innocence that it rivalled that 
which drove the Moor to kill his Desdemona. As she 
alone occupied her house, that word was a shocking 
falsehood. A single lie destroys that absolute confi- 
dence which, for certain souls, is the basis itself of 
love. To express to you what went on within me at 
that moment, it is necessary to admit that we have an 
inner being of which the visible man is the scabbard, 
and that that being, brilliant as light itself, is deli- 
cate as a vapor. Well, that glorious inward I was 
thenceforth and forever clothed in crape. Yes, I felt 
a cold and fleshless hand placing upon me the shroud 
of experience, imposing upon my soul the eternal 
mourning which follows a first betrayal. Lowering 
my eyes not to let her see my dazed condition, a 
proud thought came into my mind which restored to 
me some strength : ‘ If she deceives you she is un- 
worthy of you/ I excused the flush in my face, and 


Another Study of Woman, 531 

a few tears that came into my eyes, on the ground of 
increased illness, and the gentle creature insisted on 
taking me home in her carriage. On the way she was 
tenderness itself; her solicitude would have deceived 
the same Moor of Venice whom I take for my point of 
comparison. In fact, if that big child had hesitated 
two seconds longer he would, as any intelligent spec- 
tator divines, have asked pardon of Desdemona. 
Therefore, to kill a woman is the act of a child. She 
wept as she left me at my own door, so unhappy was 
she at not being able to nurse me herself! She 
wished she were my valet, she was jealous of his cares! 
All this was written to me the next day as a happy 
Clarissa might have written it. There is always the 
soul of a monkey in the sweetest and most angelic of 
women ! 

At these words the women present lowered their 
eyes as if wounded by a cruel truth so cruelly stated. 

“ I tell you nothing of the night, nor of the week 
that I passed,” continued de Marsay; “ but it was 
then that I saw myself a statesman.” 

Those words were so finely uttered that, one and all, 
we made a gesture of admiration. 

“While refiecting, with an infernal spirit, on all 
the forms of cruel vengeance to which we can subject 
a woman,” continued de Marsay, — “ and there were 
many and irreparable ones in this case, — I suddenly 


632 


Another Study of Woman. 


despised myself ; I felt that I was commonplace, and 1 
formulated, insensibly, a dreadful code, that of Indul- 
gence. To take revenge upon a woman, does not such 
an act admit that there is but one woman in the world 
for us, and that we cannot live without her? If so, is 
vengeance a means to recover her? But if she is not 
indispensable to us, if there are others for us, why 
not allow her the same right to change that we arro- 
gate to ourselves? This, you must fully understand, 
applies only to passion; otherwise it would be anti- 
social; nothing proves the necessity of indissoluble 
marriage more than the instability of passion. The 
two sexes need to be chained together like the wild 
beasts that they are, in laws as mute and unchange- 
able as fate. Suppress revenge, and betrayal becomes 
nothing in love, its teeth are drawn. Those who 
think that there exists but one woman in the world 
for them, they may take to vengeance, and then there 
is but one form for it, — that of Othello. Mine was 
different ; it was this : — ” 

The last three words produced among us that imper- 
ceptible movement which journalists describe in par- 
liamentary debates as “profound sensation.” 

“ Cured of my cold and of pure, absolute, divinest 
love, I let myself go into an adventure with another 
heroine, who was charming, of a style of beauty ex- 
actly opposite to that of my deceiving angel. 1 took 


Another Study of Woman, 533 

good care, however, not to break with that very clever 
creature and good comedian, for I don’t know whether 
a true love itself can give more graceful enjoyments 
than accomplished treachery. Such hypocrisy equals 
virtue. I don’t say this for you Englishmen,” added 
the minister, gently, addressing Lady Barimore, daugh- 
ter of Lord Dudley. “Well, I even tried to fall in 
love. It happened that I wanted for this new angel a 
little gift done with my own hair, and I went to a cer- 
tain artist in hair, much in vogue in those days, who 
lived in the rue Boucher. This man had a monopoly 
of capillary gifts, and I give his address for the bene- 
fit of those who have n’t much hair of their own; he 
keeps locks of all kinds and all colors. After receiv- 
ing my order, he showed me his work. I then saw 
productions of patience surpassing those of fairy tales 
and even of convicts; and he put me up to all the 
caprices and fashions which reigned in the regions of 
hair. 

“ ‘For the last year,’ he said to me, ‘ there has 
been a rage for marking linen with hair; happily, 1 
had a fine collection on hand and excellent work- 
women.’ 

“Hearing those words, a suspicion assailed me; I 
drew out my handkerchief and said to him : — 

“ ‘Probably this was done at your place, with false 
hair? * 


534 Another Study of Woman, 

“He looked attentively at the handkerchief and 
said : — 

“ ‘That lady was very difficult to suit; she insisted 
on matching the very shade of her hair. My wife 
marked those handkerchiefs herself. You have there, 
monsieur, one of the finest things of the kind ever 
executed.* 

“ Before this last flash of light I might still have 
believed in something; I could still have given some 
attention to a woman’s word. I left that shop having 
faith in pleasure, but, in the matter of love, as much 
of an atheist as a mathematician. Two months later 
I was seated beside my ethereal deceiver on a sofa in 
her boudoir. I was holding one of her hands, which 
were very beautiful, and together we were climbing 
the Alps of sentiment, gathering flowers by the way, 
plucking the leaves from the daisies (there is always 
a moment in life when we pluck out the daisy leaves, 
though it may be in a salon where daisies are not). 
At the moment of deepest tenderness, when we seem to 
love most, love is so conscious of its want of duration 
that one feels an invincible need to ask: ‘ Dost thou 
love me? ’ — ‘ Wilt thou love me^always? * I seized 
that elegiac moment, so warm, so flowery, so expan- 
sive, to make her tell her finest lies, with the ravish- 
ing exaggerations of that Gascon poesy peculiar to 
love. Charlotte then displayed the choicest flowers 


Another Study of Woman. 535 

of her deception ; she could not live without me ; I was 
the only man in all the world to her; yet she feared 
to weary me, for in my presence her mind forsook 
her; near me her faculties became all love; she was 
too loving not to have many fears; of late she had 
sought a means to attach me forever to her side ; but 
God alone could do that.” 

The women who were listening to de Marsay seemed 
offended by his mimicry; for he accompanied these 
words with pantomime, poses of the head, and affecta- 
tions of manner, which conveyed the scene. 

“At the moment when I was expected to believe 
these adorable falsehoods, I said to her, still holding 
her right hand in mine : — 

“ ‘When do you marry the duke?* 

“ The thrust was so direct, my glance met hers so 
straight, that the quiver of her hand lying softly in 
mine, slight as it was, could not be completely dis- 
sembled ; her eyes fell before mine, and a slight flush 
came into her cheeks. 

“ ‘ The duke! * she said, feigning the utmost aston- 
ishment. * What can you mean? * 

“ ‘I know all,* I replied; ‘ in my opinion you had 
better not delay the marriage. He is rich, he is a 
duke ; but also, he is religious, — more than that, he is 
a bigot! You don’t seem aware how urgent it is that 
you should make him commit himself in his own eyes 


506 


Another Study of Woman, 


and before God; if you don’t do this soon you will 
never attain your end.’ 

“ ‘Is this a dream? * she said, pushing up her hair 
from her forehead with Malibran’s celebrated gesture, 
fifteen years before Malibran ever made it. 

“ ‘ Come, don’t play the babe unborn, my angel,’ I 
said, trying to take both her hands. But she crossed 
them in front of her with an angry and prudish little 
air. ‘Marry him, I am willing,* I continued. ‘In 
fact, I strongly advise it.’ 

“ ‘But,’ she said, falling at my feet, ‘ there ’s some 
horrible mistake here; I love no man but you in this 
world; you can ask me for any proof you like.* 

“ ‘Rise, my dear,’ I said, ‘ and do me the honor 
to be frank.’ 

“ ‘ Yes, before Heaven.’ 

“ ‘ Do you doubt my love?* 

“ ‘No.’ 

“ ‘My fidelity?’ 

“ ‘No.’ 

“‘Well, then, I have committed the greatest of 
crimes, ’ I went on. ‘ I have doubted your love and 
your fidelity; and I have looked at the matter 
calmly — ’ 

“ ‘ Calmly! ’ she cried, sighing. ‘ Enough, Henri, 
I see that you no longer love me. ’ 

“ You observe that she was quick to seize that way 


Another Study of Woman* 637 

of escape. In such scenes an adverb is often very 
dangerous. But luckily curiosity induced her to 
add : — 

“ ‘What have you seen or heard? Have I ever 
spoken to the duke except in society ? Have you ever 
noticed in my eyes — * 

“‘No,’ I said, ‘but I have in his. You have 
made me go eight times to Saint-Thomas d’Aquin to 
see you both hearing mass together.’ 

“‘Ah!’ she cried, ‘at last I have made you 
jealous I ’ 

“ ‘I wish I could be,’ I replied, admiring the sup- 
pleness of that quick mind, and the acrobatic feats by 
which she strove to blind me. ‘ But, by dint of going 
to church, I have become an unbeliever. The day of 
my first cold and your first deception you received the 
duke when you thought me safe in bed, and you told 
me you had seen no man. ’ 

“ ‘ Do you know that your conduct is infamous? * 

“ ‘How so? I think your marriage with the duke 
an excellent affair; he gives you a fine name, the only 
position that is really suitable for you, n honorable 
and brilliant future. You will be one of the queens 
of Paris. I should do you a great wrong if I placed 
any obstacles in the way of this arrangement, this 
honorable life, this superb alliance. Ah! some day, 
Charlotte, you will do me justice by discovering how 


538 Another Study of Woman. 

different my character is from that of other young 
men. You are on the point of being forced to break 
with me, and yet you would have found it very diffi- 
cult to do so. The duke is watching you ; his virtue 
is very stern, and it is high time that you and I should 
part. You will have to be a prude, I warn you of 
that. The duke is a vain man, and he wants to be 
proud of his wife.* 

“‘Ah!* she said, bursting into tears, ‘Henri, if 
you had only spoken I * (you see she was determined to 
put the blame on me) — ‘ yes, if you had wished it we 
could have lived all our lives together, married, happy 
before the world, or in some quiet corner of it.* 

“ ‘Well, it is too late now,* I said, kissing her 
hands and assuming the airs of a victim. 

“ ‘ But I can undo it all,* she said. 

“ ‘ No, you have gone too far with the duke. 1 
shall even make a journey, to separate us from each 
other more completely. We should each have to fear 
the love of our own hearts.* 

“ ' Do you think, Henri, that the duke has any 
suspicions ? * 

“ ‘I think not,* I replied, ‘ but he is watching you. 
Make yourself devote^ attend to your religious duties, 
for the duke is seeking proofs ; he is hesitating, and 
you ought to make him come to a decision.* 

“She rose, took two turns about the boudoir in a 


Another Study of Woman, 


539 


state of agitation either feigned or real; then she 
found a pose and a glance which she no doubt felt 
to be in harmony with the situation; for she stopped 
before me, held out her hand, and said in a voice of 
emotion : — 

“‘Henri, you are a loyal, noble, charming man, 
and I shall never forget you.* 

“This was excellent strategy. She was enchanting 
in this transition, which was necessary to the situa- 
tion in which she wanted to stand towards me. I 
assumed the attitude and manners of a man so dis- 
tressed that she took me by the hand and led me, 
almost cast me, though gently, on the sofa, saying, 
after a moment’s silence: ‘I am deeply grieved, my 
friend. You love me truly? * 

“ ‘Oh, yes.’ 

“ ‘ Then what will become of you? ’ ” 

Here all the women present exchanged glances. 

“I have suffered once more in thus recalling her 
treachery, but at any rate I still laugh at the air of 
conviction and soft inward satisfaction which she felt, 
if not at my death, at least at my eternal unhappi- 
ness,” continued de Marsay. “OhI you needn’t 
laugh yet,” he said to the guests; “the best is still to 
come. I looked at her very tenderly after a pause, 
and said : — 

“ ‘Yes, that is what I have asked myself.* 


Another Study of Woman, 


r>40 


“ * What will you do? * 

“ ‘ I asked myself that question the morning after 
the cold I told you of. ’ 

“ ‘And? — ’ she said, with visible uneasiness. 

“ ‘I began to pay court to that little lady whom I 
had for my substitute.* 

‘‘Charlotte sprang up from the sofa like a frightened 
doe; she trembled like . leaf, as she cast upon me 
one of those looks in which a woman forgets her dig- 
nity, her modesty, her craftiness, even her grace, — 
the glittering glance of a hunted viper, forced to its 
hole, — and said : — 

“ ‘I, who loved him! I, who struggled! I, who — ^ 

“ On that third idea, which I leave you to guess, 
she made the finest organ pause ears ever listened to. 

“ ‘ Good heavens!’ she cried, ‘ how wretched women 
are! We are never truly loved. There is nothing real 
to men in the purest sentiments. But, let me tell you, 
though you trick us, you are still our dupes. * 

“ ‘ So I see,* I said with a contrite air. ‘ You have 
too much wit in your anger for your heart to suffer 
much.* 

“This modest sarcasm redoubled her wrath; she 
now shed tears of rage. 

“ ‘You have degraded life and the world in my 
eyes,* she said; ‘you have torn away all my illusions, 
you have depraved my heart — * 


Another Study of Woman. 541 

“ In short, she said to me all that I had the right 
to say to her, with a bare-faced simplicity, a naive 
effrontery, which would certainly have got the better 
of any man but me. 

“ ‘ What will become of us, poor hapless women, in 
the social life which Louis XVIII.’s Charter has crea- 
ted for us? Yes, we were born to suffer. As for 
love, we are always above you, and you are always 
below us in loyalty. None of you have honesty in 
your hearts. For you, love is a game in which you 
think it fair to cheat.* 

“‘Dear,* I said, ‘to take things seriously in our 
present social life would be to play at perfect love 
with an actress.* 

“ ‘ What infamous treachery! * she cried. ‘ So this 
has all been reasoned out? * 

“ ‘ No; it is simply reasonable.* 

‘“Farewell, Monsieur de Marsay,* she said; ‘you 
have deceived me shamefully.* 

“ ‘ Will Madame la duchesse,* I asked in a submis- 
sive manner, ‘remember Charlotte*s wrongs? * 

“ ‘Assuredly,* she said in a bitter tone. 

“ ‘ So then, you detest me? * 

“ She inclined her head ; and I left her to a senti- 
ment which allowed her to think that she had some- 
thing to avenge. My friends, I have deeply studied 
the lives of men who have had success with women; 


542 Another Study of Woman. 

and I feel sure that neither the Mardchal de Richelieu, 
nor Lauzun, nor Louis de Valois ever made, for the 
first time, so able a retreat. As for my own heart 
and mind, they were formed then and forever; and 
the control I gained over the unreflecting impulses 
which cause us to commit so many follies gave me the 
coolness and self-possession which you know of.” 

“ How I pity the second woman! ” said the Baronne 
de Nucingen. 

An almost imperceptible smile which flickered for a 
moment on de Marsay’s pale lips made Delphine de 
Nucingen color. 

“ How people forget! ” cried the Baron de Nucingen. 

The naivete of the celebrated banker had such suc- 
cess that his wife, who had been that “ second ” of de 
Marsay, could not help laughing with the rest of the 
company. 

“You are all disposed to condemn that woman,” 
said Lady Dudley, “ but I can understand why she 
should not consider her marriage in the light of an 
inconstancy. Men never will distinguish between 
constancy and fidelity. I knew the woman whose 
history Monsieur de Marsay has just related ; she was 
one of the last of your great ladies.” 

“Alas! you are right there,” said de Marsay. 
“ For the last fifty years we have been taking part in 
the steady destruction of all social distinctions. We 


643 


Another Study of Woman, 

ought to have saved women from the great shipwreck, 
but the Civil Code has passed its level over their 
heads. However terrible the words may be, they 
must be said ; the duchess is disappearing, and so is 
the marquise. As for baronesses (I ask pardon of 
Madame de Nucingen, who will make herself a true 
countess when her husband becomes peer of France), 
the baronesses have never been regarded seriously.” 

“Aristocracy begins with the viscountess,” re- 
marked Blondet, smiling. 

“ Countesses will remain,” said de Marsay. “An 
elegant woman will always be more or less a countess, 
— countess of the Empire, or of yesterday, countess 
of the vieille roche^ or, as they say in Italy, countess of 
civility. But as for the great lady^ she is dead, — dead 
with the grandiose surroundings of the last century; 
dead with her powder, mouches^ and high-heeled slip- 
pers, and her busked corset adorned with its delta of 
flowing ribbons. Duchesses in the present day can 
pass through ordinary doors that are not widened to 
admit a hoop. The Empire saw the last of the trained 
gowns. Napoleon little imagined the effects of the 
Code of which he was so proud. That man, by creat- 
ing his duchesses, generated the race of comme il faut 
women whom we see to-day, — the resulting product 
of his legislation.” 

“Thought, used as a hammer by the lad leaving 


544 


Another Study of Woman* 


sctiool and the nameless journalist, has demolished 
the splendors of the social state,” said the Comte de 
Vandenesse. “To-day, any absurd fellow who can 
hold his head above a collar, cover his manly breast 
with half a yard of satin in the form of a waistcoat, 
present a brow shining with apocryphal genius under 
his frizzed hair, and blunder along in varnished pumps 
and silk socks costing half a dozen francs, now wears 
a glass in the arch of one eye by squeezing his cheek 
against it and, — whether he *s a lawyer’s clerk, the 
son of a contractor, or a banker’s bastard, — ogles 
impertinently the prettiest duchess, rates her charms 
as she comes down the staircase of a theatre, and says 
to his friend (clothed by Buisson, like the rest of us), 
‘Th^e, my dear fellow, is a comme ilfaut woman.’” 

“You have never made yourselves,” said Lord 
Dudley, “into a party; it will be long now before 
you have any place politically. A great deal has 
been said in France about organizing labor, but 
property has never yet organized. Here is what is 
happening to you : A duke, no matter who (there were 
still a few under Louis XVIII. and Charles X. who 
possessed two hundred thousaixd francs a year, a splen- 
did mansion, and a retinue of servants), — that duke 
could still behave like a great seigneur. The last of 
these great French lords is the Prince de Talleyrand. 
This duke dies, and, let us suppose, leaves four chil- 


545 


Another Study of Woman, 

dren, two of whom are daughters. Each of these 
heirs, supposing that he has managed to marry them 
well, will inherit, at most, sixty to eighty thousand 
francs a year; each is father or mother of several 
children, consequently obliged to live on one floor, 
probably the ground-floor, of a house, with the strictest 
economy, — it may be that they are even obliged to 
borrow money. The wife of the eldest son, who is a 
duchess in name only, has neither carriage, nor ser- 
vants, nor opera-box, nor time of her own ; she has n’t 
even her own suite of rooms in a family mansion, nor 
her own fortune, nor her personal baubles. She is 
buried in marriage as a wife of the rue Saint Denis is 
buried in commerce; she buys the socks of her dear 
little babes, feeds and teaches her daughters, whom 
she no longer puts to school in a convent. Your 
women of rank simply sit upon their nests.” 

“Alas, yes!” said Joseph Bridau. “Our epoch 
no longer possesses those exquisite feminine flowers 
which adorned the great centuries of the French mon- 
archy. The fan of the great lady is broken. Woman 
no longer blushes, whispers sly malice, hides her face 
behind her fan only to show it, — the fan serves merely 
to fan her! When a thing is no longer anything but 
what it IS, it is too useful to belong to luxury.” 

“Everything in France has assisted in producing 

the comme il faut woman,” said Daniel d’Arth^z. 

35 


646 Another Study of Woman, 

“ The aristocracy has consented to this state of things 
by retreating to its estates to hide and die, — emigrat- 
ing to the interior before ideas as formerly it emi- 
grated to foreign parts before the populace. Women 
who could have founded European salons, controlled 
opinion and turned it like a glove, who should have 
ruled the world by guiding the men of art and thought 
who outwardly ruled it, have committed the fatal 
blunder of abandoning their ground, ashamed to have 
to struggle with a bourgeoisie intoxicated by power 
and making its debut on the world’s stage only, per- 
haps, to be hacked in pieces by the barbarians who 
are at its heels. Where the bourgeois affects to see 
princesses, there are none but so-called fashionable 
women. Princes no longer find great ladies to distin- 
guish ; they cannot even render famous a woman taken 
from the ranks. The Due de Bourbon was the last 
prince to use that privilege.” 

“And Heaven knows what it cost him! ” said Lord 
Dudley. 

“The press follows suit,” remarked Rastignac. 
“ Women no longer have the charm of spoken feuille- 
tons, delightful satires uttered in choicest language. 
In like manner we now-a-days read feuilletons written 
in a patois which changes every three years, and 
“little journals,” as lively as undertakers, and as 
light as the lead of their own type. French conversa- 


Another Study of Woman, 


547 


tlon is now carried on in revolutionary Iroquois from 
end to end of France, where the long printed columns 
of the newspapers take the place in ancient mansions 
of those brilliant coteries of men and women who con^- 
versed there in former days.” 

“ The knell of Great Society has sounded, do you 
know it?” said a Russian prince; “and the first 
stroke of its iron tongue is your modern French term* 
femme comme il faut," 

“You are right, prince,” said de Marsay. “That 
woman, issuing from the ranks of the nobility, or 
growing from the bourgeoisie, coming from any and 
every region, even the provinces, is the expression of 
the spirit of our day, — a last image of good taste, wit, 
intellect, grace, and distinction united, but all diminish- 
ing. We shall see no more grandes dames in France, 
but for a long time still to come there will be comme 
il faut women, sent by public opinion to the Upper 
Feminine Chamber, — women who will be to the fair 
sex what the ‘ gentleman * is among his fellows in 
England.” 

“And they call that progress! ” said Mademoiselle 
des Touches. “ I would like to know what progress 
is.” 

“ This^** said Madame de Nucingen: “ Formerly a 
woman might have the voice of a fish-wife, the walk 
of a grenadier, the forehead of the boldest hussy, a 


648 


Another Study of Woman, 


fat foot, a thick hand, but nevertheless that woman 
was a ‘ great lady ’ ; but now, be she a Montmorency, 
— if the Demoiselles de Montmorency could ever have 
such attributes, — she would not be a woman comme 
il faut," 

“ What is meant by a woman comme il faut ? ** 
asked Comte Adam Laginski, naively. 

“ She 's a modern creation, a deplorable triumph of 
the elective system applied to the fair sex,” said de 
Marsay. “ Every revolution has its term, or saying, 
in which it is summed up and described. Our social 
revolution has ended in the comme il faut woman.” 

“You are right,” said the Russian prince, who had 
come to Paris to make himself a literary reputation. 
“ To explain certain terms or sayings added century 
by century to your noble language, would be to write 
a glorious history. Organize^ for instance, is the 
word of the Empire; it contains Napoleon — the whole 
pf him.” 

“But all that is not telling us what you mean by 
the woman comme il faut f cried the young Pole, with 
some impatience. 

“141 explain her to you,” said ilmile Blondet. 
“ On a fine morning you are lounging about Paris. It 
is more than two o’clock, but not yet five. You see a 
woman coming towards you ; the first glance you cast 
upon her is like the preface to a fine book; it makes 


Another Study of Woman. 


549 


you anticipate a world of refined and elegant things. 
Like the botanist crossing hill and vale as he her- 
borizes, among all varieties of Parisian commonness 
you have found a rare flower. Either this woman is 
accompanied by two very distinguished-looking men, 
one of whom is decorated, or by a footman in undress 
livery who follows her at a little distance. She wears 
neither startling colors, nor open-worked stockings, 
nor over-ornamental buckles, nor drawers with em- 
broidered frills visible at her ancles. You notice 
that her shoes are either prunella, with strings crossed 
on the instep over thread stockings of extreme fine- 
ness, or gray silk stockings that are perfectly plain; 
or else she wears dainty little boots of exquisite sim- 
plicity. Some pretty and not expensive stuff makes 
you notice her gown, the shape of which surprises the 
bourgeoises; it is almost always a pelisse, fastened 
by knots of ribbon and delicately edged with a silken 
cord or an almost imperceptible binding. The lady 
has an art of her own in putting on a shawl or a man- 
tle ; she knows how to wrap it from her waist to her 
throat, forming a sort of carapace which would make 
a bourgeoise look like a tortoise, but under which the 
comme ilfaut woman contrives to indicate a beautiful 
figure while concealing it. How? by what means? 
That is a secret which she keeps, without the protec- 
tion of any patent. She walks with a certain concen- 


550 


Another Study of Woman. 


trie and harmonious motion, which makes her sweet 
alluring figure quiver under the stuffs as an adder at 
mid-day makes the green turf above him move. Does 
she owe to angel or devil that graceful undulation 
which plays beneath the black silk mantle, sways the 
lace of its border, and sheds a balmy air which I shall 
venture to call the breeze-Parisian. You remark upon 
her arms, about her waist, around her neck, a science of 
folds draping even a restive stuff, which reminds you 
of the antique Mnemosyne. Ah ! how well she under- 
stands — forgive me the expression — the methods of 
gait. Examine well the way in which she advances 
her foot, moulding an outline beneath her gown with 
a decent precision which excites the admiration, 
restrained by respect, of those who pass her. If an 
Englishwoman tried that walk she would look like a 
grenadier marching to the assault of a redoubt. To 
the woman of Paris belongs the genius of gait. The 
municipality has long owed her our coming, asphalt 
pavements. You will observe that this lady jostles 
no one. In order to pass, she stands still, waiting 
with proud modesty until way is made for her. Her 
attitude, both tranquil and disdainful, obliges the 
most insolent dandy to step aside. Her bonnet, of 
remarkable simplicity, has fresh strings. Possibly, 
there may be flowers upon it; but the cleverest of 
these women wear only ribbons. Feathers require a 


Another Study of Woman* 


551 


carriage, flowers attract the eye. Beneath the bonnet 
you see the cool and restful face of a woman who is 
sure of herself, but without self-conceit; who looks 
at nothing, but sees all; and whose vanity, lulled by 
continual gratification, gives to her countenance an 
expression of indifference which piques curiosity. 
She knows she is being studied; she is well aware 
that nearly every one, even women, turn round to look 
at her. She passes through Paris like a film of gos- 
samer, as white and as pearly. This beautiful species 
of the sex prefers the warmest latitudes and the clean- 
est longitudes in Paris; you will therefore find her 
between the 10th and the 110th arcade of the rue de 
Eivoli, along the line of the boulevards, from the 
equator of the Panorama, where the productions of the 
Indies flourish and the finest creations of industry are 
blooming, to the cape of the Madeleine ; you will find 
her also in the least muddy regions of the bourgeoisie, 
between number 30 and number 150 of the rue du 
Faubourg-Saint-Honore. During the winter she takes 
her pleasure on the terrace of the Feuillants, and not 
upon the bituminous pavements which skirt it. Ac- 
cording to weather, she glides through the alleys of 
the Champs Elysees. Never will you meet this charm- 
ing variety of womankind in the hyperboreal regions 
of the rue Saint-Denis, never in the Kamtschatka of 
muddy streets small and commercial, and never any- 


552 


Another Study of Woman, 


where in rainy weather. These flowers of Paris, open- 
ing to the sun, perfume the promenades and fold their 
leaves by five in the afternoon like a convolvulus. 
The women whom you will see later having slightly 
the same air and trying to imitate them are another 
race. This fair unknown, the Beatrice of our day 
is the comme il faut woman. 

“ It is not always easy, my dear count,” said Blondel, 
interrupting himself for a moment, “ for foreigners to 
perceive the differences by which a connoisseur emeri- 
tus distinguishes the two species, for women are born 
comedians. But those differences strike the eye of 
all Parisians : hooks are visible, tapes show their yel- 
lowish white through a gap at the back of the gown; 
shoes are worn at heel, bonnet strings have been 
ironed, the gown puffs out too much, the bustle is flat- 
tened. You notice a sort of effort in the premeditated 
lowering of the eyelids. The attitude is conventional. 
As for the bourgeoise, it is impossible to confound 
her with the woman who is comme il faut ; she makes 
an admirable foil to her, she explains the charm the 
unknown lady has cast upon you. The bourgeoise is 
busy ; she is out in all weathers ; comes and goes and 
trots; is undecided whether she will, or whether she 
will not enter a shop. Where the comme il faut woman 
knows perfectly well what she wants and what she 
means to do, the bourgeoise is undecided, pulls up 


Another Study of Woman, 


553 


her gown to cross a gutter, drags a child after her, and 
is forced to watch for carriages; she is a mother in 
public and lectures her daughter; carries money in a 
handbag and wears open-work stockings, a boa above 
a fur cape in winter, and a shawl with a scarf in sum- 
mer, — the bourgeoise is an adept at the pleonasms 
of the toilet. As for your Beatrice, you will find her 
in the evening at the Opera, or in a ballroom. She 
then appears under an aspect so different that you 
fancy her two creations without analogy. The woman 
has issued from her morning vestments like a butter- 
fly from its larva. She serves, as a dainty to your 
raptured eyes, the form which her shawl scarce out- 
lined in the morning. At the theatre the woman of 
society never goes higher than the second tier of 
boxes, unless at the Italian opera. You can therefore 
study at your ease the judicious slowness of her move- 
ments. This adorable manoeuvrer uses all the little 
artifices of woman’s policy with a natural ease that 
precludes the idea of art and premeditation. Is her 
hand royally beautiful, the most suspicious man would 
believe it absolutely necessary to roll, or fasten up, 
or toss aside whichever ringlet or curl she may touch. 
Has she nobility of profile, you will think she is 
merely giving irony or charm to what she says to her 
neighbor, by turning her head in a manner to produce 
that magic effect, so dear to great painters, which 


554 


Another Study of Woman, 


draws the light to the cheek, defines the nose with a 
clear outline, illumines the pink of the nostril, carves 
the forehead with sharp prominence, and leaves a 
touch of high light on the chin. If she has a pretty 
foot she throws herself on a sofa with the coquetry of 
a cat in the sunshine, her feet forward, without your 
seeing anything more in that pretty pose than a 
charming model for lassitude offered to a sculptor. 
No other woman but the woman comme il faut is ever 
perfectly at her ease in her clothes ; nothing disturbs 
her. You will never see her putting in place, like a 
bourgeoise, a recalcitrant shoulder-knot, or looking to 
see if the lace of her chemisette accomplishes its office 
of unfaithful guardian to the sparkling whiteness of 
her bosom; never will you find her looking in a mirror 
to discover if her coiffure is perfectly intact. Her 
toilet is always in harmony with her character; she 
has had time to study herself and to decide what suits 
her; she has long known what does not suit her. You 
never see her when the audience of a theatre disperses ; 
she departs before the end of the play. If by chance 
she is seen, calm and sedate, upon the steps of the 
staircase, some powerful sentiment has prompted her. 
She is there to order; she has some look to give, sorne 
promise to receive. Perhaps she is descending slowly 
to gratify the vanity of a slave whom she occasion- 
ally obeys. If you meet her in society, at a ball or a 


I 


555 


Another Study of Woman. 

soirSe^ you will gather the honey, real or affected, of 
her practised voice; you will be enchanted with her 
empty talk, to which she contrives to impart the sem- 
blance of thought with inimitable skill — ” 

“ Then it is n’t necessary for the comme il faut 
woman to have intellect ? ” said the young Polish 
count. 

“ It is impossible to be that kind of woman without 
taste,” said the Princesse de Cadignan. 

“ And to have taste is, in France, to have more 
than mind,” said the Russian prince. 

“ The mind of this woman is the triumph of an art 
that is wholly plastic,” replied Blondet. “ You don’t 
know what she says, but you are charmed. She has 
nodded her head or sweetly shrugged her handsome 
shoulders, or gilded some meaningless phrase with a 
smile or a charming pout, or put Voltaire’s epigram 
into an ‘Oh! ’ an ‘Ah! ’an ‘Is it possible?* The 
turn of her head is an active interrogation ; she gives 
meaning of some kind to the movement with which 
she dances a vinaigrette fastened by a chain to her 
finger. These are artificial great effects obtained 
by superlatively small ones; she lets her hand fall 
nobly from the arm of her chair, and all is said ; she 
has rendered judgment without appeal fit to move the 
most insensible. She has listened to you, she has 
given you an opportunity to show your wit ; and — 1 


556 Another Study of Woman, 

appeal to your modesty — such moments in society are 
rare/* 

The innocent air of the young Pole whom Blondet 
was addressing made every one laugh heartily. 

“ You can’t talk half an hour with a bourgeoise 
before she brings to light her husband under one form 
or another,” continued Blondet, whose gravity did not 
give way ; “ but if your comme il faut woman is married 
she has the tact to conceal her husband, and the labor 
of Christopher Columbus would hardly enable you to 
discover him. If you have not been able to question 
others on this point, you will see her toward the end of 
the evening fix her eyes steadily on a man of middle 
age, who inclines his head and leaves the room ; she 
has told her husband to call up the carriage, and she 
departs. In her own house no comme il faut woman 
is ever visible before four o’clock, the hour at which 
she receives. She is wise enough to make you wait 
even then. You will find good taste throughout her 
house ; her luxury is intended for use, and is renewed 
when needful; you will see nothing thereunder glass 
cases, nor any swathings of protective gauze. The 
staircase is warm; flowers gladden you everywhere; 
flowers are the only presents she accepts, and those 
from a few persons only ; bouquets give pleasure and 
live for a single day and are then renewed. To her 
they are, as in the East, a symbol and a promise. 


Another Study of Woman, 


557 


The costly trifles of fashion are spread about, but her 
salons are not turned into a museum or an old curi- 
osity shop. You will find her seated on a sofa at the 
corner of the fireplace, whence she will bow to you 
without rising. Her conversation is no longer that 
of the ballroom; in her own house she is bound to 
entertain you. The comme il faut woman possesses 
all these shades of behaviour in perfection. She wel- 
comes in you a man who will swell the circle of her 
society, the great object of the cares and anxieties of 
all women of the world. Consequently, to attach you 
to her salon she will make herself charmingly coquet- 
tish. You will feel above all, in that salon, how 
isolated women are in the present day and why they 
endeavor to have a little society about them in which 
they can shine as constellations. But this is the 
death of conversation; conversation is impossible 
without generalities.” 

“ Yes,” said de Marsay, “ you have seized upon the 
great defect of our epoch. Epigram, that book in a 
word, no longer falls, as in the eighteenth century, on 
persons and on things, but on petty events and dies 
with the day.” 

“ The wit of the comme il faut woman, when she 
has any,” resumed Blondet, “consists in putting a 
doubt on everything, while the bourgeoise uses hers 
to affirm everything. There lies a great difference 


658 


Another Study of Woman, 


between the two women. The bourgeoise is certain 
of her virtue ; the comme il faut woman is not sure if 
she has any yet, or if she has always had it. This 
hesitation about all things is one of the last graces 
our horrible epoch has granted her. She seldom goes 
to church, but she will talk religion to you and try to 
convert you, if you have the good sense to play the 
free thinker, for that will open the way to the stereo- 
typed phrases, the motions of the head and the ges- 
tures which belong to such women: ‘Ah, fy ! I thought 
you had more intelligence than to attack religion. 
Society is crumbling already and you remove its 
prop. But religion at this moment is you and I, it is 
property, it is the future of our children! Ah! let us 
not be egotists. Individualism is the disease of our 
epoch, and religion is the sole remedy; it unites the 
families that your laws disunite, ’ etc. , etc. She begins 
in this way a neo-Christian sermon sprinkled with 
political ideas, which is neither Catholic nor Protest- 
ant, but moral (oh! devilishly moral), in which you 
will find scraps of every stuff that modern doctrines 
driven to bay have woven.” 

The women present could not help laughing at the 
mincing affectations of their sex with which Emile 
Blondet illustrated his sarcasms. 

“Those remarks, my dear Comte Adam,” said 
Blondet, looking at the young Pole, “ will show you 


Another Study of Woman, 659 

that the comme il faivt woman represents intellectual 
hotch-potch as well as political jumble; just as she 
lives surrounded by the brilliant but not lasting pro- 
ducts of modern industry, which aims at the destruc- 
tion of its work in order to replace it. You will leave 
her house saying to yourself, ‘ She has, decidedly, 
very superior ideas ; ’ and you think so all the more 
because she has sounded your heart and mind with a 
delicate hand; she has sought your secrets, — for the 
comme il faut woman feigns ignorance of everything, 
in order to discover everything; but she is discreet; 
there are things she never knows, however well she 
may know them. Nevertheless you will feel uneasy, 
you are ignorant of the real state of her heart. For- 
merly the great ladies loved openly, banners dis- 
played ; now the woman comme il faut has her little 
passion ruled like a sheet of music paper with its 
crotchets and quavers, its minims, rests, and sharps 
and flats. Always weak, she will neither sacriflce her 
love, her husband, nor the future of her children. 
She ’s a woman of jesuitical middle-paths, of squint- 
eyed temporizing with conventions, of unavowed pas- 
sions carried along between two breakwaters. She 
fears her servants like an Englishwoman who sees 
before her the perspective of a divorce suit. This 
woman, so apparently at her ease in a ballroom, so 
charming on the street, is a slave at home. She has 


660 


Another Study of Woman. 


no independence, unless locked in with her own ideaSc 
She is determined to remain outwardly the woman 
comme il faut. That 's her theory of life. A woman 
separated from her husband, reduced to a pittance, 
without carriage or luxury or opera-box, is to-day 
neither wife, maid, nor bourgeoise; she dissolves, 
she becomes a thing. What is to become of her? 
The Carmelites won’t take married women; will her 
lover always want her? that’s a question. There- 
fore the comme il faut woman may sometimes give 
rise to calumny, but never to condemnation.” 

That is all true, horribly true,” said the Princesse 
de Cadignan. 

“ Consequently, the comme il faut woman,” con- 
tinued Blondet, “lives between English hypocrisy 
and the frankness of the eighteenth century, — a bas- 
tard system emblematic of a period when nothing 
that comes is like that which goes, when transitions 
lead nowhere, when the great figures of the past are 
blotted out, and distinctions are purely personal. In 
my opinion it is impossible for a woman, even though 
she be born on the steps or a throne, to acquire before 
the age of twenty-five, the encyclopedic science of 
nothings, the art of mancEuvring, the various great 
little things, — music of the voice, harmonies of 
color, angelic deviltries and innocent profligacy, tho 
language and the silence, the gravity and the folly, 


Another Study of Woman, 561 

the wit and the dulness, the diplomacy and the igno- 
rance which constitute the woman comme il faut,"* 

“Accepting the description you have just given of 
her,” said Mademoiselle des Touches to Emile Blondet, 
“where do you class the woman-author? Is she a 
woman comme il faut ? ” 

“ When she is not gifted with genius, she is a woman 
comme il n'en faut pasf replied ^mile Blondet, ac- 
companying his answer with a glance which might 
pass for a frank compliment to Camille Maupin. 
“But that is not my saying; it belongs to Napoleon, 
who hated women of genius,” he added. 

“Don’t be too hard on Napoleon,” said Canalis, 
with an emphatic tone and gesture. “It was one of 
his littlenesses — for he had them — to be jealous of 
literary fame. Who can explain, or describe, or 
comprehend Napoleon? — a man represented always 
with folded arms, who yet did all things; who was 
the greatest known Power, the most concentrated 
power, the most corrosive and acjd of all powers; a 
strong genius which led an armed civilization through- 
out the world and fixed it nowhere ; a man who could 
do all because he willed all ; prodigious phenomenon 
of Will! — subduing disease by a battle, yet doomed 
to die of disease in his bed after living unscathed 
amid cannon-balls and bullets; a man who had in 

his head a Code and a Sword, word and action; a 
36 


562 


Another Study of Woman, 


clear-sighted mind which divined all except his own 
fall; a capricious politician who played his soldiers 
like pawns and yet respected three heads, Talleyrand, 
Pozzo di Borgo, and Metternich, diplomatists whose 
death would have saved the French Empire, but whose 
life seemed to him of more value than that of thou- 
sands of soldiers; a man to whom, by some rare 
privilege nature had left a heart in his iron body ; a 
man at midnight kind and laughing among women, 
and the next day handling Europe without gloves; 
hypocritical and generous ; loving meretriciousness 
and simplicity ; without taste, but protecting Art ; and, 
in spite of these antitheses, grand in all things by in- 
stinct or by organization; Caesar at twenty-five years 
of age, Cromwell at thirty, but a good husband and 
a good father like any bourgeois of Pere Lachaise ; a 
man who improvised great public buildings, empires, 
kings, codes, poems, and one romance, and all with 
greater range than accuracy. Did he not attempt to 
make Europe France; and after bearing our weight 
upon the earth until it changed the laws of gravitation, 
has he not left us poorer than the day he put his hand 
upon us? He who made an empire with his name, 
lost that name on the borders of his empire in a sea 
of blood and slaughtered men. A man all thought 
and action, who was able to comprehend both Desaix 
and Fouche/’ 


Another Study of Woman, 


563 


“ Despotic power and legal justice, each in due sea- 
son, makes the true king,” said de Marsay. 

“But,” said the Princesse de Cadignan, addressing 
the other women with a smile both dubious and satiri- 
cal, “have we women really deteriorated as these 
gentlemen seem to think? Because to-day, under a 
system which belittles everything, you men like little 
dishes, little apartments, little paintings, little jour- 
nals, little books, is that any reason why women 
should be less grand than they have been ? Does the 
human heart change because you change your habits ? 
At all epochs passions remain the same. I know 
splendid devotions, sublime endurances which lack 
publicity, — fame if you prefer to call it so. Many 
a woman is not less an Agnes Sorel because she never 
saved a king of France. Do you think our Marquise 
d’Espard worth less than Madame Doublet or Madame 
du Deffand, in whose salon so njuch harm was said 
and done? Isn’t Taglioni the equal of Camargo? 
and Malibran of Saint-Huberti ? Are not our poets 
superior to those of the eighteenth century? If, at 
this moment, thanks to the grocers who govern us, we 
have no style of our own, did n’t the Empire have a 
style as fully its own as that of Louis XV. ? And its 
splendor was surely fabulous. Have the arts and 
sciences lost ground ? ” 

“I agree with you, madame,” said General de 


564 


Another Study of Woman* 


Montriveau. “In my opinion the women of this 
epoch are truly great. When posterity gives a verdict 
upon us will not Madame Recamier’s fame be equal to 
that of the loveliest women of past ages? We have 
made history so fast that we lack historians to write it 
down. The reign of Louis XIV. had but one Madame 
de Sevigne, while we have a thousand to-day in Paris 
who can write better letters, but do not publish them. 
Whether the French woman calls herself femme comme 
il faut or great lady, she will always be the pre- 
eminent woman, ilmile Blondet has made us a pic- 
ture of the manners and charms of a woman of the 
present day; but, if occasion offered, this mincing, 
affected being, who plays a part and warbles out the 
ideas of Monsieur this, that, and the other, would 
show herself heroic! Even your faults, mesdames, 
seem the more poetic because they are and always 
will be hedged about with great dangers. I have seen 
much of the world, perhaps I have studied it too late; 
but, under circumstances in which the illegality of 
your sentiments might find excuse, I have always 
observed the effects of some chance, — you may call it 
Providence if you like, — which fatally overtake those 
women whom we call frail.” 

“ I hope,” said Madame de Camps, “ that we are 
able to be great otherwise.” 

“ Oh, let the Marquis de Montriveau preach to usl ” 
cried Madame de Serizy. - 


Another Study of Woman. 565 

“ All the more because he has preached by example,” 
said the Baronne de Nucingen. 

“Alas!” said General de Montriveau, “of the 
many dramas, — that a word you are constantly 
using,” he said with a nod to Blondet, “in which to 
my knowledge the finger of God has showed itself, 
the most terrible was one that was partly my own 
doing.” 

“ Oh, tell it to us! ” cried Lady Barimore. “ I love 
to shudder.” 

“The taste of a virtuous woman,” said de Marsay 
replying to the charming daughter of Lord Dudley. 

“During the campaign of 1812,” said General de 
Montriveau, “ I was the involuntary cause of a fearful 
misfortune, which may serve you, Docteur Bianchon,” 
he said, turning to me, — “ you, who take so much note 
of the human mind while you study the human body, — 
to solve certain of your enigmas concerning the will. 
I was making my second campaign ; I liked the peril 
and I laughed at everything, simple young lieutenant 
of artillery that I was ! When we reached the Beresina 
the army no longer kept, as you know, any discipline; 
military obedience was at an end. A crowd of men 
of all nations was making its way instinctively from 
north to south. Soldiers drove their barefooted and 
ragged general from their camp-fires if he brought 
them neither wood nor provisions. After the passage 


566 Another Study of Woman, 

of that famous river, the disorder was lessened. I 
came out quietly, alone, without food, from the 
marshes of Zembin, and I walked along looking for a 
house where some one might be willing to admit me. 
Finding none all day, being driven from those I came 
to, I fortunately saw late in the evening a miserable 
little Polish farmhouse, of which I can give you no 
idea unless you have seen the wooden houses of lower 
Normandy or the poorest hovels of La Beauce. These 
Polish dwellings consist of a single room, one end of 
which is divided off by a plank partition and serves as 
a storehouse for forage. 1 saw in the twilight a light 
smoke rising from this building, and hoping to find 
comrades more compassionate than the persons I had 
hitherto addressed, I marched boldly to the door. 
Entering, I found a table spread. Several officers, 
among whom was a woman (a not unusual sight), 
were eating potatoes and horse-flesh broiled on the 
embers, and frozen beetroot. I recognized two or 
three captains of artillery belonging to the regiment in 
which I had first served. I was received with a volley 
of acclamations which would greatly have surprised 
me on the other side of the Beresina; but at this 
moment the cold was less intense, my comrades were 
resting, they were warm, they were eating, and piles 
of straw at the end of the room offered them the per^ 
spective of a delightful night. We did n't ask for 


Another Study of Woman* 567 

much in those days. My comrades could be philan- 
thropic gratis, — a very common way of being philan- 
thropic, by the bye. At the end of the table, near the 
door which led into the small room filled with straw 
and hay, I saw my former colonel, one of the most 
extraordinary men I have ever met in the varied col- 
lection of men it has been my lot to know. He was 
an Italian. Whenever human beings are beautiful in 
southern countries they are sublimely beautiful. Have 
you ever remarked the singular whiteness of Italians 
when they are white? It is magnificent, especially in 
the light. When I read the fantastic portrait Charles 
Nodier has given us of Colonel Oudet, I found my 
own sensations expressed in every sentence. Italian, 
like most of the officers of his regiment, — borrowed 
by the Emperor from the army of Prince Eugene, — 
my colonel was a man of great height, admirably pro- 
portioned, possibly a trifle too stout, but amazingly 
vigorous and light, agile as a greyhound. His black 
hair, curling profusely, set into brilliant relief a clear 
white skin like that of a woman. He had handsome 
feet, small hands, a charming mouth, and an aquiline 
nose with delicate lines, the tip of which contracted 
naturally and turned white when he was angry, which 
was often. His irascibility so passed all belief that 1 
shall tell you nothing about it; you shall judge for 
yourself. No one was ever at ease in his presence. 


668 


Another Study of Woman. 


Perhaps I was the only man who did not fear him. 
It is true that he had taken a singular liking to me; 
he thought whatever I did was good. When anger 
worked within him, his forehead contracted, his mus- 
cles stood out in the middle of it like the horse-shoe 
of Redgauntlet. That sign would have terrified you 
more than the magnetic lightning of his blue eyes. 
His whole body would then quiver, and his strength, 
already so great in his normal condition, passed all 
bounds. He rolled his r’s excessively. His voice, 
certainly as powerful as that of Charles Nodier’s 
Oudet, gave an indescribable richness of sound to the 
syllable which contained that consonant. Though this 
vice of pronunciation was, in him, and at all times, a 
charm, you cannot imagine the power that accent, con- 
sidered so vulgar in Paris, was capable of expressing 
when he commanded a manoeuvre, or was in any way 
excited. You must have heard it to understand it. 
When the colonel was tranquil his blue eyes were full 
of angelic sweetness; his pure brow sparkled with an 
expression that was full of charm. At a parade of the 
Army of Italy no man could compare with him. Even 
d'Orsay himself, the handsome d’Orsay, was van- 
quished by our colonel at the last review held by 
Napoleon before his entrance into Russia. In this 
gifted man all was contradiction. Passion lives by 
contrasts. Therefore do not ask me whether he was 


Another Study of Woman, 


569 


conscious of those irresistible influences to which 
our nature ” (the general looked toward the Princesse 
de Cadignan) “bends like molten glass beneath the 
blower’s pipe; but it so chanced that by some singular 
fatality the colonel had had but few love-affairs, or 
had neglected to have them. To give you an idea of 
his violence, I will tell you in two words what I once 
saw him do in a paroxysm of anger. We were march- 
ing with our cannon along a very narrow road, bor- 
dered on one side by woods and on the other by a 
rather steep bank. Half way along this road we met 
another regiment of artillery, its colonel marching 
with it. This colonel wanted to make the captain of 
our regiment at the head of the first battery give way 
to his troop. Naturally our captain refused. But the 
colonel of the other regiment made a sign to his first 
battery to advance, and in spite of the care the first 
driver took to keep close into the woods the wheel of 
the gun carriage caught the right leg of our captain, 
broke it, and flung him to the other side of his horse. 
It was done in a moment. Our colonel, who happened 
to be at a little distance, saw the quarrel, and galloped 
furiously up through the trees and among the wheels 
at the risk of being flung with all his hoofs in the air, 
reaching the spot in face of the other colonel just as 
the captain cried out, ‘To me! ’ and fell. No! our 
Italian colonel was no longer a man. Foam, like that 


570 


Another Study of Woman. 


of champagne, boiled from his mouth, he growled like 
a lion. Incapable of uttering a word, even a cry, he 
made a dreadful sign to his adversary, pointing to the 
wood, and drew his sabre. They entered it. In two 
seconds we saw the other colonel on the ground with 
his head split in two. The soldiers of that regiment 
retreated, ha ! the devil ! and in quick time, too ! Our 
captain, who just missed being killed, and who was 
yelping in the ditch where the wheel of the gun- 
carriage had flung him, had a wife, a charming Italian 
woman from Messina, who was not indifferent to our 
colonel. This circumstance had greatly increased his 
fury. His protection was due to the husband ; he was 
bound to defend him as well as the wife. Now, in 
the miserable Polish cabin this side of Zembin, where, 
as I told you, I received such cordial welcome, this 
very captain sat opposite to me, and his wife was at 
the other end of the table opposite to the colonel. 
She was a little woman, named Rosina, very dark, 
but bearing in her black eyes, shaped like almonds, 
all the ardour of the sun of Sicily. At this moment 
she was deplorably thin, her cheeks were covered 
with dust like a peach exposed to the weather on a 
high-road. Scarcely clothed and all in rags, wearied 
by marches, her hair in disorder beneath the frag- 
ment of a shawl tied across her head, there was still 
all the presence of a woman about her; her move- 


Another Study of Woman, 571 

ments were pretty, her rosy, dimpled mouth, her white 
teeth, the lines of her face and bust, — charms which 
misery, cold, and want of care had not entirely effaced, 
— still told of love and sweetness to any one whose 
mind could dwell upon a woman. Rosina evidently 
possessed one of those natures which are fragile in 
appearance, but are full of nervous strength. The 
face of the husband, a Piedmontese nobleman, ex- 
pressed a sort of jeering good-humor, if it is per- 
missible to ally the two words. Brave, intelligent 
and educated, he nevertheless seemed to ignore the 
relations which had existed between his wife and the 
colonel for nearly three years. I attributed this 
indifference to the singular customs of Italy, or to 
some secret in their own home ; but there was in the 
man’s face one feature which had always inspired me 
with involuntary distrust. His underlip, thin and 
very flexible, turned down at its two extremities 
instead of turning up, which seemed to me to reveal 
an underlying cruelty in a character apparently phleg- 
matic and indolent. You can well imagine that the 
conversation was not brilliant when I entered. My 
weary comrades were eating in silence, but they nat- 
urally asked me a few questions ; and we related our 
several misfortunes, mingling them with reflections 
on the campaign, the generals, their blunders, the 
Russians, and the cold. Soon after my arrival, the 


572 


Another Study of Woman. 


colonel, having finished his meagre meal, wiped his 
moustache, wished us good-night, cast his black eye 
toward the woman, and said, ‘Rosina.’ Then with- 
out awaiting any reply he went into the space parti- 
tioned off for forage. The meaning of his summons 
was evident; and the young woman made an inde- 
scribable gesture, which expressed both the annoyance 
that she felt at seeing her dependence thus exhibited 
without respect for human feelings, and her sense of 
the affront offered to her dignity as a woman and to 
her husband. And yet in the strained expression of 
her features and in the violent contraction of her eye- 
brows, there seemed to be a sort of foreboding; per- 
haps a presentiment of her fate came over her. Rosina 
continued to sit tranquilly at the table; a moment 
later the colonel’s voice was heard repeating her 
name, ‘ Rosina ! * The tone of this new summons 
was even more brutal than that of the first. The roll- 
ing accent of the ColoneRs voice and the echo which 
the Italian language gives to vowels and final letters 
revealed in a startling manner the despotism, impa- 
tience, and will of that man. Rosina turned pale, 
but she rose, passed behind us, and joined the colonel. 
All my comrades maintained a rigid silence ; but I, un- 
happily, after looking round at them, began to laugh, 
and the laugh was then repeated from mouth to mouth. 
‘You laugh?’ said the husband. ‘Faith, comrade,’ 1 


Another Study of Woman, 


573 


replied, becoming serious, ‘I did wrong, I admit it; I 
ask ten thousand pardons; and if you are not content 
with such excuses I am ready to give you satisfac- 
tion.’ ‘It is not you who have done wrong, it is I,’ 
he replied coldly. Thereupon we all shook down our 
straw about the room and were soon lost in the sleep 
of weariness. The next day each man, without awak- 
ing his neighbor, without looking for a journeying 
companion, started on his way with that utter egotism 
which made our retreat from Russia one of the most 
horrible dramas of personality, sadness, and horror 
which ever took place beneath the heavens. Yet 
after each man had gone some seven or eight hundred 
yards from our night’s lodging, we came together and 
marched along like geese led in flocks by the uncon- 
scious despotism of a child. A common necessity 
was driving us along. When we reached a slight 
elevation from which we could see the house where we 
had passed the night, we heard sounds that resembled 
the roaring of lions in the desert or the bellowing of 
bulls; but no! that clamor could not be compared to 
any known sound. Mingled with that horrible and 
sinister roar came the feeble cry of a woman. We all 
turned round, seized with a sensation — I know not 
how to describe it — of fear ; the house was no longer 
visible, only a burning pile; the building, which 
some one had barricaded, was in flames. Clouds of 


574 


Another Study of Woman* 


smoke, driven by the wind, rolled towards us, bring- 
ing raucous sounds and a strong indescribable odor. 
A few steps from us marched the captain, who had 
quietly joined our caravan; we looked at him in 
silence, for none of us dared question him. But he, 
divining our curiosity, touched his breast with the 
forefinger of his right hand and pointed with the left 
to the conflagration. ‘Son* io! * he said. We con- 
tinued our way without another word to him.** 

“ There is nothing more fearful than the revolt of 
sheep,*’ said de Marsay. 

“ It would be too dreadful to let us part with that 
horrible scene in our minds,** said Madame de Mont- 
cornet. “I shall dream of it.** 

“ Tell us, before we go, what punishment befel 
Monsieur de Marsay’s first love,** said Lord Dudley, 
smiling. 

“ When Englishmen jest their foils are buttoned,** 
remarked fimile Blondet. 

“Monsieur Bianchon can tell you that,** replied de 
Marsay, turning to me. “He saw her die.** 

“Yes,** I said, “ and her death was one of the most 
beautiful I ever witnessed. The duke and I had 
passed the night beside the pillow of the dying woman, 
whose disease, consumption, was then in its final 
stages; no hope remained, and she had received the 
last ofiSces of the Church the preceding evening. The 


Another Study of Woman. 


575 


duke had fallen asleep. Madame la duchesse, wak- 
ing about four in the morning, made me, in a touch- 
ing manner and with a smile, a tender little sign to 
let him sleep ; and yet she felt she was about to die ! 
She had reached a stage of extraordinary thinness, but 
her face preserved its features, and its outlines were 
truly sublime. Her pallor made her skin resemble 
porcelain behind which a light has been placed. Her 
brilliant eyes and the color in her cheeks shone out 
upon this skin so softly beautiful, while the whole 
countenance seemed to breathe forth a commanding 
tranquillity. Evidently she pitied the duke, and the 
feeling took its rise in a lofty sentiment which seemed 
to see no limit in the approach of death. The silence 
was profound. The chamber, softly lighted by a 
lamp, had the appearance of all sick-chambers at the 
moment of death. At that instant the clock struck. 
The duke awoke, and was in despair at having slept* 
I did not See the gesture of impatience with which he 
showed the regret he felt at having lost his wife from 
sight during the few last moments granted to him; 
but it is certain that any other person than the dying 
woman might have been mistaken about him. A 
statesman, preoccupied with the interests of France, 
the duke had many of those apparent oddities which 
often make men of genius pass for fools, though the 
explanation may be found in the exquisite nature and 


576 Another Study of Woman, 

requirements of their mind. He now took a chair 
beside the bed and looked fixedly at his wife. The 
dying woman put out her hand and took that of her 
husband which she pressed gently, saying in a soft 
but trembling voice : — 

“‘My poor friend, who will understand you in 
future? ’ 

“ So saying, she died, looking at him.” 

“The doctor’s stories,” said the Due de Rhetord, 
“always leave a deep impression.” 

“ But a tender one,” said Mademoiselle des Touches. 








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